Roses in December
by Mousme
Summary: A car accident while he's at Stanford threatens to change Sam's life forever. An AU featuring Sam, Dean & Jess as they struggle to redefine "normal."
1. Chapter 1

Title: **Roses in December**

Prompt: From the ever-lovely and talented **pkwench**: Freshman semester at Stanford Sam gets tagged by a car while walking home from work, the library, whatever. His only emergency contact is one Bobby Singer who is attending a "business conference" in New Hampshire. However, he has the number of someone who might be a little closer to Sam and who can probably get there before the boy wakes up. You can totally go permanent injury with that if you like. :)

Summary: _"God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December."_ J. M. Barrie. (Okay, not exactly a summary. That's what the prompt was for.)

Spoilers: This is a Season 1 AU, so none.

Wordcount: 3,736 (this section)

Warnings: So far? Not much. A bit of bad language. It's tame by my standards. ;)

Disclaimer: Disclaiming disclaimer disclaims all that ought to be disclaimed. Furthermore, I disclaim.

Neurotic Author's Note: Okay, so I kind of took the prompt and, uh, did something totally different with it. I set it waaay after freshman year, and kind of went with something a little other than permanent injury, although I suppose it could be permanent, but I just don't know yet. So, uh, yeah. There you go. Sorry, **pkwench**.

Neurotic Author's Note #2: I don't actually know how long this thing is going to be. I'm still playing with it. It might resolve in just one more chapter, maybe five. Or it could get epic on me, I just don't know. My apologies in advance, because I'm not going to be following my usual rule of updating on a daily schedule until the fic is complete. It's going to be sporadic at best. *cringe*

There are only a handful of people who have Bobby Singer's cell phone number. Most of the time he resents having to carry one at all, but hunters who can't stay current with the times are the first to find themselves six feet under. Cell phones are damned useful, provided you're in an area that gets cell coverage, and there's something to be said for the new text messaging feature that a lot of the little gizmos have nowadays: no useless ringing, no need for idle chit-chat, just the pertinent information contained in 140 characters or less.

Still, the shrill ringing of his phone at two o'clock in the morning is about the most unwelcome sound in the world. Two o'clock in the morning automatically means it's bad news, and given how few people have his number, it means that it's bad news concerning someone he cares about. He lunges for the bedside table, fumbles with the phone, and finally manages to turn it on and bring it to his ear. An unfamiliar voice answers his sleep-befuddled greeting.

"Yes, is this Mr. Singer?"

"Yeah. Who is this? How did you get my number?"

"I'm sorry to intrude, Mr. Singer. I'm calling from Stanford Hospital. You're listed as one of the emergency contacts for Samuel Winchester. Is that right?"

He straightens up. "Yeah, that's right. Is Sam all right?"

"I'm afraid not. There's been an accident."

"What? What happened?"

"He was struck by a car late yesterday evening, and right now he's listed as being in critical condition. We've been unable to find contact information for any of his family members, and it would be helpful, both for the hospital and for Samuel, if someone were to come."

Bobby swears under his breath. "Dammit. I can't make it any time soon. I'm in New Hampshire for a, uh, business conference. Listen, I got a number for someone who's a lot closer to where you're at..."

**~SPN~SPN~SPN~**

"Sam? Sammy?"

There's something lodged in his throat. He chokes, can't quite get his arms to come up to pull at the foreign object he can feel in his mouth, and suddenly there's a cacophony of voices, a flurry of activity around him.

"Sam!" A different voice, more commanding this time. "Sam, you need to calm down. We have to remove the ventilator tube. Sam? Listen to me. Calm down and let us work, okay?"

He manages to lie still, coughs so hard he thinks he might puke when the tube comes out, and black spots dance before his eyes. His chest feels as though it's on fire. After a few moments the pain recedes a bit, and he becomes aware of someone rubbing his shoulder, but he doesn't open his eyes.

"I'm going to give you something for the pain, Sam," the second voice continues. "You just hang in there, okay?"

A third voice chimes in, soft and definitely feminine. "Sam, it's okay. We're right here."

"Hey, Sammy," the first voice is back, familiar and soothing. "You with us? Come on, kiddo. Open those baby blues for me, you hear?"

He can't place it, but something about the voice makes him want to do what it says. The pain is fading, and so he forces his eyes open, waits for things to come into focus. Someone's standing over him, and he gets a vague impression of hazel eyes and spiky light brown hair, a leather jacket that's achingly familiar, freckles scattered over a thin nose, a scruffy five o'clock shadow. The man smiles at him, looking so pleased that he can't help but smile back. It's a nice smile, he thinks, warm and maybe just a little teasing. His gaze slides over to a very pretty blonde girl standing by the bed, then slides back to the guy, who's still talking.

"Hey, there you are, Sammy. You had us all worried. That nap you took lasted an awfully long time. You remember anything about what happened?"

That gives him pause. He frowns, trying to sort things out in his mind. That he's in a hospital is obvious: the bed, the ventilator, the serious-looking guy in the white coat standing off to one side, taking notes on a clipboard. His right leg is suspended above him, encased in some kind of scary-looking metal thing. An external fixator, a distant corner of his brain supplies. He's surprised he can remember that. Everything else, though... he shakes his head slowly.

"Retrograde amnesia isn't unusual after a trauma like this," the doctor says, looking up from his clipboard and approaching the bed. "It's the body's way of coping. Excuse me," he says to the other guy, a hint of impatience in his voice. "What's the last thing you remember, Sam?"

He shakes his head again. "Dunno. Was there an accident?" His voice cracks, his mouth impossibly dry. The pretty girl holds up a cup of water with a straw to his lips, and he finds that he's ridiculously grateful for it. The doctor keeps talking as he takes a few careful sips.

"You were hit by a car. Can you tell me the date?"

"No. Sorry."

"That's fine, don't worry about it. You've been in a coma for a while —gave us all a bit of a scare."

"Coma?" He looks back and forth from the blond girl to the guy, trying to figure out just what they're doing here. Comas are serious, and unless they're close —blood relatives— they wouldn't be allowed in the room with him, would they?

"Sammy..." the guy in the leather jacket is leaning over him again, his expression suddenly worried. "You okay?"

"My leg hurts," he says finally, because it's the only thing that makes sense.

"The morphine will help with that," the doctor promises. "We're going to have to run some tests, but I think for now I'll just let you and your brother catch up."

Brother? He jerks a bit, trying to push himself upright, and one of the monitors suddenly begins beeping shrilly as the pain in his chest flares up again.

"Take it easy, Sammy! Just let the drugs do their thing, okay? No sitting up until you're better. That car kind of did a number on you."

He keeps struggling, grabs onto one of the arms trying to manhandle him back onto the bed. "Uh, I don't —I can't—" he stammers.

The guy eases him back, and after a moment he lets him, too tired to keep fighting for long. "Sam, what's wrong?"

His leg throbs. "I don't know," he manages, and for no reason he can determine he finds himself fighting back tears. "I don't —I don't know you."

**~SPN~SPN~SPN~**

It's a nightmare. A nightmare that's already lasted far too long, and it doesn't look as though Dean is about to wake up from it anytime soon. He didn't think it could get worse than receiving a call in the wee hours of the morning telling him his brother was probably going to die in the next few hours, but apparently the universe is out to prove him wrong.

The first thing he learns upon entering the hospital and asking for Sam —and it feels weird to be asking for his brother by his real name— is that his brother is undergoing a second emergency surgery (his mind balks at the word 'second,' because it didn't even occur to him that there might have been a first surgery) to stop some kind of spontaneous bleeding that developed, and a whole lot more medical jargon that goes sailing right by him in a buzz of anxious static.

The second thing he learns is that his brother has a girlfriend: an honest-to-God blonde bombshell of a girl who's putting up one hell of a fuss at the same desk where he got his information to begin with, because no one is telling her anything. The nurse is placid and unmovable behind the desk, simply repeating her mantra of "family members only," until Dean is sure that the girl is going to simply lunge across the countertop and throttle her. He's too busy pacing to pay much attention to her, and it's only when he hears her utter the name "Sam" like a talisman that he puts two and two together.

"Sam Winchester?" he asks, and the name has the same effect on her. She whirls, eyes bright with hope and anxiety.

"You know Sam?"

"I should. Who're you?"

"I'm his girlfriend. They won't tell me anything. Are you his family?"

"Yeah. I'm his brother. I didn't know Sammy had a girlfriend," he pulls her away from the counter, is halfway tempted to hit on her because, well, she's hot and chicks in distress are something of a specialty of his. Except that she's Sammy's girlfriend and Sammy is not fifty feet away on an operating table, and Dean can't bring himself even to go through the motions.

"You're Dean?"

"He told you about me?" his throat constricts, in spite of himself.

"A little bit. He doesn't talk much about his past," she glances at the doors leading the operating room. "They won't tell me what's going on."

He clears his throat. "Were you, uh, there when it happened?"

"No," she shakes her head. "Not right away. It was right outside our apartment. I was inside, and I guess he must have been coming home from work. I heard a car braking, and then people started screaming, and when I looked out the window..." she bites her lips. "God, there was so much blood..."

He shakes his head, doesn't want to hear it. "You want to get some coffee? Tell me the rest?"

She snorts. "I want a cigarette. Sam would be so pissed."

He glances up at her with a sudden grin, pulls out a pack of Marlboro's, flicks open the top with his thumbnail. "They told me he's gonna be in surgery at least another two hours, maybe more. I'll tell you what I know, but it isn't much."

She pulls a cigarette from the pack. "You're a fucking lifesaver, you know that?"

They sneak out through one of the fire escape doors, and she doesn't even bat an eyelash when he expertly disables the alarm so they don't get caught. She does notice the limp, though.

"You hurt yourself?"

He shrugs. "Couple of years ago. I can tell you what the weather's going to be like now. Not a big deal."

"Right," she blows smoke through her nose. "Sam does that too."

"What?"

"Plays down when he's hurting. Guess it's a family thing."

"Guess it is."

They sit side by side, shoulders barely brushing together, and smoke coils up from the tips of their cigarettes, and neither of them says another word for the next two hours.

**~SPN~SPN~SPN~**

It's not like Dean hasn't camped out in emergency rooms and intensive care wards before, desperately waiting to find out if he's lost yet another family member. He's got lots of practice at that, mostly thanks to his Dad. Except this time it's different. He's never had someone wait with him before: Dad never coped well with Sammy being in hospital, disappearing for as long as he could with a bottle of Jim Beam and only coming back when he was sure Sam was out of the woods. Dean's pretty sure his Dad coped the same way whenever he was hospitalized, too, but then he was usually unconscious for that part, and Sam never said anything about it.

This time, though, he has an unexpected ally in Jessica Moore. He finds out more about her in the first few hours they spend waiting for Sam's surgery to be over than he's ever revealed about his entire family in his whole life. She's Sam's age, and they've been dating a little over a year since a mutual friend introduced them. She's got a sister and a brother, both younger, and her parents live in Orange County and are oh-so-proud that their daughter is going to Stanford. She's pre-law, same as Sam —and Dean starts a little guiltily when he realizes that Sam has been gone for nearly four years and he has no idea what his little brother's been studying— and she and Sam just took the LSATs together in June.

"He scored a 174," she tells him.

"Is that good?"

"Scary good."

He grins, takes a drag off his cigarette, watching it burn down almost to the filter. "That's my boy," he says, and catches a funny expression on her face. "What?"

She shrugs. "He didn't believe me when I said his family would be proud of him. It's nice to know he was wrong."

He grinds the cigarette butt under the heel of his boot. "Yeah, well. He doesn't know us nearly as well as he thinks he does." Before she can answer he checks his watch. "We should go back in."

It's weird having someone else there. Someone else to help process all the medical jargon the doctors spew at him. He's never been good at this part, not even with practice. He always just sort of stands there numbly, unable to absorb more than the basics of whether or not Sam is going to be all right, but this time Jess is there, asking questions, poking and prodding and insisting, and he's beginning to understand just why Sam is dating her. When the surgeon has finished talking, she insists on being allowed in the ICU with Dean, finds them both really large cups of coffee and a couple of really uncomfortable chairs.

"Forty-eight hours isn't that long," she tells him, her mouth set in a thin, determined line. "Sam and I have crammed for exams together for longer than that. This? This is nothing. He's going to be fine."

**~SPN~SPN~SPN~**

Once the first twelve hours go by and Sam is still hanging in there, Dean starts letting himself hope a little bit. He and Jess take turns leaving for coffee, for sandwiches. He all but runs back every time he's gone for more than twenty minutes, but each time he comes back Sam hasn't so much as budged. He's still pale and oh so still on his bed, looking small and vulnerable hooked up to all the monitors, IVs snaking up from his arm, the ventilator whooshing steadily as it pumps air into his lungs. Jess curls a leg under her on the chair, keeps one small hand wrapped around his wrist, stroking the back of his hand with her thumb, talking to him quietly when they're alone. The gesture is so intimate that Dean backs away the first time, feeling as though he's intruding, but she looks up at him with a smile and motions to him to come in, and it's ridiculous how relieved he is at that.

Jess deals with the horde of friends who keep trying to barge in. They're not allowed in the ICU, for which Dean is more than grateful, but they hover and call and try to help, and by the time morning rolls around on the second day he's ready to punch the next one who tries to ask him who he is and why Sam has never mentioned him, and generally act as though they have more of a right to worry about Sam than he does. Jess steps in smoothly, then, gathers the Stanford kids around her like a broody hen, smooths their ruffled feathers, and firmly sends them packing back to their dorm rooms, or wherever else students go on campus these days. He almost hugs her when they're alone again.

While Jess deals with the life Sam's made for himself, Dean tries to deal with the life Sam left behind. His brother might be dying, but Dad's off hunting a chupacabra in New Mexico and apparently there's no cell reception there. Either that or he's ignoring both the ringing phone and his messages, which Dean wouldn't put past him, if he thinks the hunt is important enough. So he leaves messages, and just shrugs when Jess shoots him a funny look. He keeps the messages short, and to the point: Sammy's in a coma, but the doctor's are cautiously optimistic that he'll wake up on his own. Sammy's leg is shattered, and it'll take multiple surgeries to get back even limited mobility. Sammy broke some ribs, which in turn punctured a lung. Sammy's skull is fractured, and the doctors are bandying about scary words like "subdural haematoma," and Dean has watched enough medical dramas on television to know that that's a bad thing. Sammy has ventilator-associated pneumonia. The list goes on, and he dutifully leaves updates until the recorded voice tells him Dad's voicemail is full and to try again later, and then he just leaves his phone turned off by Sam's bed and goes outside for a cigarette.

Jess joins him, bums a cigarette from him, lowers herself carefully onto the step of the fire escape. "Is that why Sam never tried calling you guys?"

"Kind of."

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry."

"Yeah, so am I."

**~SPN~SPN~SPN~**

Forty-eight hours turns into two weeks. Jess is actually amused when he says that she shouldn't compromise her studies, and points out that it's the end of June, and classes have been over for a while now. She works part-time as a T.A. for one of her professors, but the guy has apparently been understanding and isn't pressuring her to return to work yet. So she sets up camp with him in the hospital for the long haul, finds him a spot to park the Impala where he won't have to pay astronomical fees, and even sets up a cot for him in her and Sam's apartment that he almost never sleeps on, but appreciates nonetheless. She finds the cane he still grudgingly uses every so often when his leg gets bad, and insists on keeping it nearby, just in case.

"How are you going to help Sam if you can't even help yourself?" she says, and weirdly enough he finds that he can't resent her for it, not now.

He's not used to having an ally other than Dad, but then again, this isn't exactly like a hunt, either. With Sam unconscious and Dad still not answering his goddamned phone, it's a relief to find someone who's just as anxious as he is, someone who wants to stick to him like Velcro. Together they haunt the ICY, drive the nurses crazy, spend their days and almost all of their nights near Sam's bed. Jess holds him together the first time Sam's heart stops, and after that it seems only natural to fold her into a hug when he finds her crying quietly in the fire escape because the pneumonia has taken a turn for the worse and the doctors have told them to be prepared. He tells her funny stories from when Sam was a kid, and she reciprocates with anecdotes about a Sam he never even suspected existed, who likes country music and occasionally relaxes enough to smoke pot.

Days roll by, and Dean hangs onto Sam's hand and talks at him non-stop, on the off-chance that Sam might be able to hear him, and when his voice gives out Jess takes over. Dean conveniently ignores the high chick-flick quotient of everything he's doing, doesn't care if the rest of his life ends up resembling The Notebook or whatever, just so long as he gets his brother back.

"You gotta come out of this, Sammy," he says, for what feels like the millionth time. "It's been two weeks, dude, and I'm a little tired of riding this particular roller-coaster. Besides, you owe me, like, three years' worth of explanations, and I want details on how you managed to land yourself such an awesome girlfriend. You've been holding out on me, little brother, and once you're out of this bed, I owe you an ass-kicking."

It turns out that coming out of a coma is nothing like on TV. It's a gradual process. There's no magical moment in which Sam's eyes just pop open and he's fine, but Dean will take what he can get. He almost kisses the doctor the day Sam triggers the vent by himself, except that that would be really inappropriate and maybe more than a little gay, and Dean can only deal with so much upheaval in his life at any given time. He settles for letting Jess hug him so hard she practically cracks his ribs, and grins like an idiot at her for the next hour, feeling a little less foolish because he can see his expression mirrored in her face. After that it's back to waiting, to having his pulse flutter all over the place when Sam moves on his own. He never thought he would be happy to see his brother flinch away from pain, except by now he's learned the Glasgow Coma Scale off by heart, and he'll take anything, anything at all.

Jess comes to find him, breathless and red in the face, almost exactly fourteen days after Sam's accident, and drags him back to the room, so excited she can't string together a coherent sentence. And even if Dean's own heart practically tries to jump out of his chest when Sam finally opens his eyes all by himself and panics and fights the ventilator, he figures he'll take that if it means that he's awake, because it means he's getting better. It means Sam is getting better, and Jess is clinging to him and trying really hard not to cry, and now he doesn't have to worry about the fact that he can't leave a message for Dad that the unthinkable has happened.

And then, because the universe hates Dean Winchester, Sam looks at him, hazel eyes all wide and frightened, without even the slightest trace of recognition on his face.


	2. Chapter 2

Thanks to all you lovely folks who reviewed the last chapter! I am behind on answering, but I promise I'm getting there. :)

Okay, so this chapter is still a lot of set-up. I'm getting used to my characters, figuring things out, so I hope you'll forgive the slow pace until I can get to the action.

Cheers!

**Chapter 2**

Jess smoked her first cigarette when she was twelve years old. She was in the girl's washroom with her then best friend Marcia Harris when they stumbled onto a bunch of the senior girls lighting up a cigarette and passing it between them, standing by the window to make sure all the smoke blew away. They smirked at the shell-shocked look on the younger girls' faces, and the leader, Cindy Johnson, who was pretty and popular and was dating the captain of the basketball team, casually blew a cloud of smoke in their direction.

"Marcia, isn't it? Marcia Marcia Marcia," she said, as though she was the first to come up with that particular joke. "You still a square, Marcia?" she held out the cigarette, ignoring the feeble protests of her cronies. What Cindy wanted, Cindy got, and apparently what she wanted was for Marcia and Jess to show that they weren't too chicken to have a smoke.

The girls laughed when Marcia choked and coughed, and Jess was determined not to give them the satisfaction, and thus began an eight-year relationship with nicotine that was furtive and smouldering and frustrating and exciting in its illicitness. When she was fifteen it made her cool, a rebel. When she was eighteen it made her sexy and attractive to the bad boys in school. When she was not-quite-twenty it made her arty and approachable, until she met Sam Winchester. All six feet and four inches of very handsome, very earnest dork, who never said anything to her about the cigarettes except to diffidently offer her a stick of mint gum before they'd make out, and couldn't quite manage to hide the fact that he'd start to wheeze a little if she smoked too long in the same room with him.

So she quit, and to his credit he put up with the crankiness, the mood swings, the random cravings, and the ten pounds she gained and didn't lose for well over six months. He bought her gum and nicotine patches and a ridiculously cute teddy bear with a little heart sewn on its chest that was so corny she put it on their chest of drawers and mocked him for being a girl for the better part of a year. He blushed, laughed under his bangs, and didn't argue with her.

Now she finds herself sitting on the steps of a hospital, undoing a year's worth of hard work, with the brother of the man for whom she thought it was worth it to quit a habit she'd had almost half a lifetime.

"I don't smoke around Sammy either," Dean says one evening, seemingly out of nowhere, staring at the sky where she can barely make out a few stars because of the light pollution. "Hearing him get all wheezy makes me feel guilty as hell. Plus, he gives me this look, like I've drowned a basketful of kittens."

Jess makes a sound that's somewhere between a laugh and a sob. "I know exactly what you mean. It's why I quit. I can't stomach the thought of the thousands of kittens I must have murdered in my lifetime when he's around."

She looks over at him, cigarette dangling between his index and middle fingers, silver ring glinting dully in the evening light. His hands are smaller than Sam's, the fingers a bit more delicate-looking —though Sam's hands are beautiful themselves— but they've seen harder usage, covered in tiny scars, and a few of the fingers are crooked, as though they broke and didn't heal properly. She doesn't know this man at all, knows less about him than she does about Sam, and that's saying something. Right here, sitting next to her, is a huge chunk of Sam that she's been missing this whole time, and she never realized it was missing until it barged into the hospital and made itself known, loudly.

He laughs too, quietly. "I'm going to get the most epic bitchface in all history when he catches us smelling of smoke. He'll probably accuse me of corrupting you."

_If he ever wakes up_, she thinks, but doesn't say it aloud. "He knows I'm not easily corrupted."

He glances at her, just a slight tilt of the head, eyes sliding toward her, and the gesture is so Sam that her breath catches in her throat. "Yeah, I guess you wouldn't be."

**~SPN~SPN~SPN~**

For all that Dean manages to swagger his way through the hospital as though he owns the place, handles nurses and doctors and candy stripers with the same casual arrogance combined with a strange cocky charm that seems to compel them to do whatever he wants, he falls apart entirely when it comes to dealing with her friends —Sam's friends too, she reminds herself. He retreats, doesn't quite stammer, but he loses all his ability to weasel his way in and out of conversations he doesn't want.

After the first awkward conversation she finds herself stepping in, almost protectively. Charlie Wells has him backed into a metaphorical corner, demanding to know why he's here after all this time when it was clear Sam didn't want him around, and she can see pain and anger warring on Dean's face. She steps in as much to save Dean as she does to prevent him from decking Charlie right then and there, puts a hand on Charlie's arm.

"Charlie, this isn't the time. You think Sam wants you picking a fight with his brother here? Now? Get a grip."

Charlie relaxes a fraction, steps back, blows out a breath. "Whatever. You need anything, Jess? All you gotta do is ask."

"Thanks, Charlie. Not much to do right now except wait. Why don't you get going, and I'll keep you guys posted, okay?"

He directs a glare at Dean. "Fine. You gonna be okay here?"

"We're fine," she stresses the words a bit, making sure he understands that Dean isn't going anywhere, that she won't put up with this sort of bullshit, and she's lucky that Charlie is sensitive enough to get it. He nods.

"You got my number. Anytime you want, anything you need. Same goes for all of us."

She gets up on her toes, kisses his cheek. "I know. Thank you."

When she turns back, Dean has spun on his heel and is stalking toward the fire escape. She lets him go, returns to Sam's side. His hand is lying exactly where she left it the last time, and she strokes it with the tips of her fingers.

"Your brother's a good guy, Sam," she says, watching his face. "I wish you'd told me more about him before. All I know now is that he's Dean, he chain-smokes when he's nervous —and we're both nervous now— and he looks the same as you do when he's embarrassed. You never even told me what he does for a living."

She tells herself she imagined the twitch when she said Dean's name.

Dean won't tell her anything about himself, not at first. Doesn't explain the limp, shrugs off her attempt to ask about the scar at his hairline. Eventually he mutters something about an accident on a construction site.

"You work construction?"

"Sometimes. Depends."

"Wow. Overshare, much?"

He snorts. "Sorry. I'm not in the habit of talking about my life."

She toys with the idea of another cigarette, decides against it. She'll never quit again at this rate. "You and Sam both. You get hold of your father yet?"

He shakes his head. "Voicemail's full. Must not be any reception where he's at."

"Uh-huh. So you said."

"What's that supposed to mean?" he sounds defensive, and she raises her hands in a pacifying gesture.

"Nothing. I just... Sam told me he and your Dad didn't get along, that your Dad basically disowned him—"

"He said what?" Dean bounces to his feet like a coiled spring, face flushed, and she recoils, suddenly fearful. He moves like a tiger, and she has the vivid, unshakeable impression that if he wanted her dead, she'd be gone before she hit the floor. He catches her expression, visibly forces himself to be calmer, and she feels her heartbeat slow a bit. "It wasn't like that."

"He didn't tell Sam not to come back if he went to college?"

Dean bites his lip, rubs the back of his neck. "Yeah, okay, he did, but he didn't mean it. Not like that."

She nods. "So it was a fight, he said something he didn't mean, and Sam took him at his word. What's so bad about college, anyway?"

He just shakes his head. "Nothing. College is great," he says, but she can hear the unspoken_ for other people_ at the end of his sentence. He doesn't volunteer why he and Sam aren't supposed to go to college.

"Did you ever want to go?"

He smirks, leans against the stair railing, the anxiety and barely-concealed anger suddenly gone beneath the mask of cool competency he usually wears. "Not my thing, sugar. I barely passed my GED, got other things to do."

"What do you do, anyway?"

He shrugs. "I get by."

She scowls, pulls a cigarette from the pack she bought for herself once it was obvious she wasn't going to stop right off. "And I thought Sam was evasive. I just want to know how long you can stay."

"As long as I have to."

"What about your father?"

"He'll come when he gets my messages."

"Will he?"

He shrugs, and the look on his face makes her chest constrict a bit, because she can tell that he wants to say 'of course,' and can't bring himself to lie about it. "He will if he can. Anyway, what about your parents?"

"I asked them not to come. He's not their son, and I can't deal with the extra crazy of having my mother come in and criticize my housekeeping and my father trying to take charge of everything."

"You think of staying with them for a while? If Sam... uh. If this lasts a lot longer."

"No. We're settled in, and I wasn't planning on going home for the summer."

"You okay for money?"

She tilts her head at him. "This from a guy who looks like he lives out of his car."

"That's just the job."

"The job you won't tell me about."

"That's right."

"We're fine, don't worry."

To her surprise, he smiles, a little sadly. "I always worry about Sam."

**~SPN~SPN~SPN~**

Two days turn into five, into a week, and Dean slots himself seamlessly into her life. She has to insist, at first, but once he's grudgingly accepted the cot in the tiny spare room she and Sam use as a study space, he settles a bit, allows himself to relax, and doesn't once complain about the fact that they're on a third-floor walk-up, even though there are days when she can tell it's a bitch for him to make it to the front door.

To her surprise, she finds he's a fanatically neat roommate. She's always assumed that Sam's obsessive-compulsive neatness was a trait singular to him, but Dean is just the same, almost military in his routines. The way he keeps his cot made, his toiletries in one very tiny zip-up bag, his duffel tucked under the foot of the cot, all remind her of her uncle Josh who was in the Corps for all those years. He was just the same, whenever he'd come to spend a weekend with them.

"So were you in the army or something?" she asks on the fourth day, watching him make up the cot with practised hands, making perfect hospital corners without so much as thinking about it.

"Nope."

She sighs. "If I give you bacon, will you tell me more than that?"

He looks up, gives her a grin that makes him look all of five years old for a moment. "Maybe. There's not much I wouldn't do for bacon."

"I'll throw in eggs, too," she shakes her head, trying not to laugh and failing. But she makes good on her promise, and to her surprise he makes good on his.

"My Dad was a marine," he says around a mouthful of bacon. "He taught me and Sammy everything he knows."

"Everything?" she asks, earning herself a sharp look.

"Everything."

She tries to imagine Sam wielding a gun, can't quite manage it. She keeps picturing him hunched over his desk, ankles hooked around the legs of his chair, hair askew as he studies for a philosophy midterm, chewing on the end of his pen.

"What will you do if —after he wakes up?"

He mops up egg yolk with a bit of toast, doesn't look at her. "Depends on Sammy. If he wants me to stick around for a while, I will. If not... I dunno. I guess I haven't thought about it much."

"You can stay as long as you like," she surprises herself by offering, and he looks just as surprised as she feels, eyebrows shooting up to his hairline, but he just nods, and she thinks that's probably as close as he ever gets to thanking people for favours for which he's too embarrassed to ask.

**~SPN~SPN~SPN~**

Dean surprises her by spending a lot of time researching comas and how they work, by peppering the doctors and nurses with questions. She wouldn't have thought him the type to have the patience or the willingness to do that sort of work, but does it, and ends up being surprisingly knowledgeable, absorbing the technical details like a sponge. He keeps her grounded, tells her when things are normal and when they aren't. She finds herself listening to him more than to the doctors sometimes, and she knows it should feel wrong, but it doesn't. Sometimes he feels like the only real lifeline she has, the only person she knows who really cares about Sam and not just because Sam is an extension of her. All of their friends are her friends, she knows it and Sam knew it —knows it, she corrects herself— but never seemed to mind, never resented the time she spent alone with them.

It's painful, watching Sam struggle out of his coma. It's strange, seeing him twitch and whimper on the bed. On television, coma patients just lie there, unresponsive, but it actually looks sometimes as though he's dreaming. He responds a bit to Dean's voice, rarely to hers, and she tries to pretend that the spike of jealousy she feels at that never happened. They've been brothers much longer than she and Sam have been dating, after all, it's only natural that Dean would be able to get through to him where she can't. She tells herself she doesn't resent him worming his way into their world, all affable and charming even when he's obviously worried out of his mind. It's weird, really, how good he is under the unrelenting pressure. Dean is the first to notice something's wrong —well, more wrong than it already is.

"He feels too warm," he says, reaching up to brush the backs of his fingers against Sam's cheek. Sam's eyes are moving beneath the lids, but otherwise there's no indication that he's even alive. "I'm going to get someone."

Ten minutes later they're banished from the room while the doctor and a bunch of nurses fuss over Sam, adjusting equipment and adding countless medications to his IV drip. The verdict comes back: ventilator-associated pneumonia. Then it's three days of mind-numbing anxiety, waiting to see if the infection will clear up, of watching Sam's flushed face, of wiping sweat away from him with a disinfected facecloth. Dean isn't as good about the waiting as she is, spends a lot of time pacing in the hallway, until he's limping so badly that she practically has to sit on him to get him to sit down.

"Hurting yourself isn't going to help him," she says, as gently as she can, ignores the anger flashing in his eyes —the same colour as Sam's. They look nothing alike, except for their eyes.

"I'm not—"

"Look, I don't know why you're punishing yourself, here, but you need to stop, okay? I need you to hold it together. _Sam_ needs you to hold it together," she adds, because it's been long enough that she's figured out that the name Sam works like the bell on Pavlov's dogs with Dean. He jerks away, but he nods, face grey with pain and exhaustion. "He's okay for now. Why don't you go home, take a shower, grab some sleep. Come back tonight, and I'll do the same then, okay? Go on," she says. "Don't make me order you."

His head snaps up, expression unreadable, and he nods. "Right. Call me if there's anything, okay?"

"Of course."

It's the same promise she's made every single time she's persuaded him to take a break, and she means it, every time. Or at least, she thinks she means it, until the first time Sam opens his eyes unprovoked, and she finds herself hesitating, wanting to be the first face that Sam sees. It's selfish and she knows it, but for a moment she lets herself think that maybe it's best if she leaves Dean where he is, because he's exhausted —they both are— and it's not like Sam is really all that responsive. She stays trapped in that loop of terrible, selfish thoughts for a good thirty seconds, and it feels like forever, until finally she tears herself away and runs to find Dean before her legs betray her and carry her right back to Sam's side.

**~SPN~SPN~SPN~**

Sam doesn't remember going to sleep, but he finds himself waking up again to walls that are that sickly green colour that only hospitals seem to think is a good idea. The ventilator tube is long gone, replaced by a nasal canula. He stares at the ceiling, which is white, at least, made up of those panels you find in hospitals and office buildings and especially dentists' offices. The kind that's easily removed so that maintenance staff can get to the air ducts without too much difficulty. It's a bitch to crawl around in them, because they're always full of dust, and he's kind of surprised that he knows that, because who the hell thinks about crawling around in ducts anyway? He tries to follow the train of thought to somewhere useful —maybe he's a maintenance guy or something, but none of it feels right. Even the name he has feels a little wrong, alien.

Retrograde amnesia. He remembers the term, remembers reading about it, or maybe hearing about it somewhere. Televison, maybe. That's what this is. Procedural memory is intact, so he remembers how to talk and about stuff he's read, but who he is, his whole life, is gone. Pfft. Just like that. His core is gone, and now he's just an empty, Sam-shaped shell. The thought makes something inside his chest clench so hard he thinks he might pass out.

His throat hurts, he realizes after a moment, his tongue cleaving to the roof of his mouth with thirst. He turns his head to see if there's water, flinches as even that small movement sends pain radiating through him. The room is empty, but there's a call button tied to the high bar on his bed, and after a moment of fumbling he manages to squeeze it in his fist. A moment later a nurse clad in scrubs that match the hospital walls is by his bed. Her name tag reads 'Sonia.' At least he can still read.

"Hi, Sam," she smiles at him. "How're you feeling? Any pain?"

He nods. It's strange, having all these people call him by a name he doesn't recognize. "I'm thirsty, too." His voice sounds harsh in his ears, and he's not sure if that's normal.

"Okay. You can have some water, and I'll show you how to work what one of my patients likes to call the 'magic machine.'"

He grins. "Morphine pump?" he looks over at the new machine next to the bed, one he hasn't noticed up until now.

"Can't get anything by you, can I?" she picks up a glass with a straw and hands it to him, keeping her own hand on it to steady him while he drinks. "You ever use one before? Small sips," she reminds him.

"I don't remember," the water feels fantastic on his throat, and his voice smooths out a bit. "I mean, I don't think so. Would I remember if I had?"

Sonia smiles sadly at him. "I don't know, sweetie. Memory's a tricky thing. Do you remember anything at all?"

He shakes his head slowly. "I don't even know what questions to ask. How can I ask about things I don't know I've even forgotten? It's like I don't exist."

She puts the glass down, shows him how to use the morphine dispenser, which isn't much more difficult than pushing a button. The machine beeps, which is kind of funny. "It's like the machine in 'The Meaning of Life,'" he says. "It goes 'ping!'" and she laughs.

"See? You do remember something."

"Just not the important stuff," he bites his lip. The pain's already starting to fade. "The guy who was here —my brother. What's his name?"

"It's Dean, sweetie."

"What about the girl?"

"Jessica, but Dean calls her Jess."

"Is she his girlfriend?"

He gets another sad smile from her. "No, Sam," she says gently, "she's _your_ girlfriend. Oh, sweetie," she reaches out with one hand and brushes it against his cheek, and he feels a wet warmth there. "It's okay. It'll come back to you, you'll see. Don't cry."

He nods, breath hitching, scrubs at his eyes with the hand that's not hooked up to the IV, but the tears don't stop for a very long time.


	3. Chapter 3

Thank you so much for all your lovely reviews! I do believe I have _finally_ caught up with replying to all of you, just in time to submit a brand new chapter. Hope you enjoy it! :)

**Chapter 3**

"What're you doing out here?"

Dean looks up from the newest cigarette he's just lit, holds it in his lap, forearms resting on his thighs so Jess won't see his hands shaking. "Having a smoke."

"Uh-huh. You sure you're not hiding?"

He scowls, doesn't meet her gaze. "Why would I be doing that?"

She drops to the step next to him, smoothing out her skirt as she sits, and leans her elbows on her knees. "Why don't you tell me?"

"Nothing to tell," he says shortly, taking a drag off the cigarette.

"Bullshit. Sam's asleep, or I'd be dragging you in there right off. Consider this a reprieve, but you're not off the hook. You spent two weeks practically glued to your brother's bedside. I had to pry you away with a crowbar half the time, and now that he's awake and out of danger you won't even go near his room? What are you afraid of?"

He narrows his eyes at her. "You studied law with Sam, right?"

"Yeah," her look says plainly that she doesn't know what he's driving at.

"So quit trying to psychoanalyse me."

She looks away, hurt, and it figures that Sam would be dating someone who could match him hurt look for hurt look. "Fine. But Sam needs you, and when he wakes up again you should be there, and not out here."

He shakes his head. "I was thinking maybe I should take off, now that he's out of the woods. Go find my Dad, see if anything happened to him."

"So you're not hiding, you're running away," she says flatly, and he winces at her tone.

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"Don't I?"

He finishes the cigarette, uses the still-lit butt to light another. "I'm not talking to you about this."

"Yeah, it's a family trait. I put up with it from Sam, because I love him, but you? I don't have to put up with that kind of bullshit. You're just going to leave him there like that? Alone and confused and frightened?"

She's angry, but he's dealt with his share of angry women in his line of work. "I don't have to explain myself to you."

"Maybe not, but what about Sam? What am I supposed to tell him when he wakes up again? 'Oh, sorry babe. Your brother was here, sure, but he just bailed when he realized you were awake.' What do you think that's going to do to him?"

Dean gets to his feet, starts pacing in spite of himself. "It's not like that," he snaps, losing his temper in spite of himself. "You can't understand this."

"Try explaining it to me. Feel free to use small words. Is it because he doesn't remember you?"

"No! Okay, sort of. It's... I've been thinking, and... maybe it's better if I'm not around, you know? Sammy always wanted a fresh start, and... maybe if I'm not around, he can have that."

"So you're just going to ditch us? Ditch him?"

"I don't want to, okay?"

"Then don't!" she's on her feet too, eyes flashing dangerously. She's even more beautiful when she's angry, he thinks a little breathlessly. "I don't know what happened before, because Sam never told me, you won't say a word, and now he might never be able to tell me—" her breath hitches for a moment, "but you can't leave him in there like that! You're the only one who can tell him who he really is."

He doesn't look at her. "That's exactly the problem," he says, and pushes by her back into the hospital.

**~SPN~SPN~SPN~**

It's hard to tell if Sam is asleep. The drugs keep him sedated and vague, and with his eyes closed and his breathing even and regular, he could as easily be asleep as awake. Dean settles into the chair by the bed, trying to stay quiet. If Sam is asleep, better he stay that way. The longer he's asleep, the longer Dean doesn't have to come up with answers to questions he'd rather not hear.

At the sound of the chair legs scraping on the floor, though, Sam's eyes flutter open. For a moment Dean holds his breath, waiting for a flicker of recognition, but there's nothing. Sam blinks at him, eyes unfocussed, smiles timidly.

"Hi."

He forces himself to smile. "Hey, Sammy. Sleep well?"

Sam shrugs, then winces. "Okay, I guess. Weird dreams."

"Morphine'll do that. How you feeling?"

"Can I get back to you on that?" the sheepish smile is the same, but it doesn't reach his eyes, and Dean nods, looks away.

Physically, the doctors tell them, Sam is doing much better than they could have hoped for. They've reassured Dean so many times about how young and healthy and resilient his brother is that by the time a week went by he was ready to throw a punch at the next person who said it. He knows he should be pleased that Sam is recovering well, because it's really good news. Sam could have died and instead he's here and awake and the doctors are saying he might need only one more surgery on his leg and that with proper therapy he'll probably be up and walking around in a few months and in another year or so he might not even have a limp.

Sam plucks at the thin blanket on his bed with the fingers of one hand. "So Dr. Fitch says they don't know if I'm ever going to remember anything," he says softly.

Dean's instinctive reaction is to deny it, to reassure Sammy that he's going to remember everything, that it's all going to be fine, but the words stick in his throat.

"She wants me to see a psychiatrist. Apparently there isn't any one treatment for this, it has to be managed on a case-by-case basis," Sam continues, sounding for all the world as though he's explaining the research he did on a case rather than describing his own medical treatments.

"Whatever gets the job done, right?"

"Right." There's a moment of awkward silence. "Is it stupid that I'm afraid even to start asking questions?"

Dean looks up, sees the way Sam is worrying at his lower lip with his teeth. "Hey, of course not. Don't sweat it. Me and Jess will fill you in on the important stuff, until you remember on your own."

Sam nods, swallows hard, and Dean is startled to see that he's trying hard not to cry. Sam sniffs, cuffs at his eyes with the back of his wrist. "Sorry. I'm like a damned faucet."

Dean grins and pats his good knee gently. "Well, it's good to know some things haven't changed. You always were kind of a big girl."

His brother huffs a tearful laugh at that. "I'll take your word for it," he says, and Dean's heart kind of clenches at that, because it's not what Sam would say normally.

"Okay, first lesson in being Sam Winchester. When I call you a girl? You're supposed to call me a jerk."

Sam snorts, but his eyes sparkle a bit. "Fine. Jerk."

"Bitch."

He gets an eyebrow quirked at him at that, but at least the tears have stopped, for now. "Seriously?"

"What can I say?" Dean shrugs, grinning. "We have a healthy fraternal relationship."

**~SPN~SPN~SPN~**

Once it's obvious Sam's life is no longer in danger, it's pretty much impossible to keep his friends away. They're more tactful now than they were, even Charlie-the-Asshole, as Dean has taken to calling him privately. They all figure out pretty fast that their presence is often as much a source of stress for Sam —who's racked with guilt that he can't remember any of them, and gets agitated far more easily, which in turn ratchets up his pain levels. After being told off by a doctor and a couple of nurses, they get the message and back off a bit. They mostly show up to talk to Jess, only go into Sam's room in ones and twos, and never for long.

Apart from Charlie-the-Asshole, the one friend who comes by the most is a tall blond guy with an easy smile and the blood-shot eyes of a student who drinks way too much alcohol at night and way too much coffee during the day and doesn't sleep nearly enough. He introduces himself as Brady on the first day, then comes back every afternoon after his classes to get an update on Sam's progress. He smiles at Jess, gives her shoulders a reassuring squeeze, but he mostly talks to Dean, and eventually Dean decides he's not a complete douchebag. In fact, he seems to be the only friend Sam has that he didn't meet through Jess.

"I'm the one who introduced them, actually," Brady confides on the third day. "I met Sam in freshman Latin —he's a natural for dead languages, although I don't know what that says about him," he gives Dean a shit-eating grin which is almost impossible not to return.

"He always did like school way too much."

"He's a good guy, your brother," Brady says, cradling a styrofoam cup of coffee between his knees. "Stuck by me when my parents got killed, and he's one of my only friends who didn't drop me like a hot potato when I didn't exactly cope with it in a healthy, well-adjusted way. Everyone else freaked out when I dropped out of pre-med, spent their time lecturing me about throwing my life away. Sam? He just took away my car keys when he had to, let me crash on his couch all the time —hell, I practically lived there for a couple of weeks, and he and Jess never said a word. It means a lot, you know? So I just want to be here now. Make sure I return the favour."

It's Brady who thinks of bringing photographs. Sam with Jess, faces pressed together and grinning in front of one of the faculty buildings. Sam on the grass amidst a group of friends. One of them has a guitar, the rest sprawled out and draped over each other, relaxed and laughing. Dean feels an unexpected pang looking at that one, seeing Sam sitting only fractionally apart, but laughing along all the same. He's not sure that it's not entirely his fault that Sam isn't sprawled on his back in the grass instead of sitting with his back to a tree, able to spring to his feet at a moment's notice if necessary.

"It's hard to get him to relax," Brady comments, looking over Dean's shoulder at the same photograph. He hasn't brought them into Sam's room, is waiting to get Dean's approval beforehand. "It's like he's always waiting for something terrible to happen. That's the only good thing about how he is now... whatever he was worried about, he doesn't remember it now."

It might be the most fucking tragic thing Dean has ever heard.

Sam doesn't get through five photographs before he starts to cry again, face flushing with embarrassment. He turns away from them, trying unsuccessfully to mask the way his breath keeps hitching, and Dean just wants to pull him into his arms, rub his back and whisper that it's all going to be okay. Except it's not okay, and Sam doesn't actually know him. He's been reading up, and he knows that it's really stressful for people with retrograde amnesia to deal with close contact from their friends and family.

"Sorry," Sam is saying, repeating himself. Always apologizing. Dean rubs a hand over his mouth.

"You don't have to apologize. The doctor said your emotions are gonna be all over the place for a while 'cause of the head trauma. Nothing to be sorry for, okay?"

"It's perfectly normal," Brady agrees. "I may not be on the track to being a doctor anymore, but I remember enough of my education to tell you that with all the professional authority I can muster."

Sam scrubs at his eyes. "I hate this," he mutters to no one in particular. He's gone pale under the red splotches on his face caused by the tears, and Dean risks putting a hand on his arm.

"Hey, you hurting?"

Sam looks sheepish. "A bit," he admits, and Dean rolls his eyes.

"No martyrs allowed in the hospital. Use the morphine pump like a good trauma patient. Or do you need me to get someone?"

A head shake. "I'm good," Sam says quietly, but he fumbles for the dispenser's button, and a moment later Dean sees the tension drain from his shoulders.

"All right. I'm cutting this one short. Let's go, Doogie Howser," he nudges Brady and jerks his head toward the door. Brady nods, gets up.

"I'll leave the photos, so you can take your time. I wrote the names of everyone in them on the back, from left to right, back to front. Except for the people I don't know, and for them I just wrote 'random guy we don't care about.'" He smiles, to show he's joking.

"Thanks. I appreciate it." Sam doesn't acknowledge the joke, looking a little overwhelmed even by the handful of pictures. When Dean follows Brady out the door, though, he calls out. "Hey, uh, Dean?"

He turns back. "Yeah, Sammy?"

Sam twists his hands in his lap, stares at them as though they might hold all the answers in his life. "Could you, uh, maybe stay a bit?"

Brady claps him on the shoulder. "I'll see you tomorrow, Dean," he says with a quick nod, heads off down the hallway, leaving him in the room with Sam.

He heads back in, trying not to let on just how relieved he is that Sam still wants him, even under the circumstances. "You need anything?"

Sam shakes his head. "No. I just... I don't like being alone. I don't have anything to think about, and... okay, this is going to sound stupid—"

"Sam."

His brother takes a shaky breath. "I know it's stupid, okay? But I... every time I fall asleep, I feel like I'm falling into a black hole, and every time I'm scared that this time I won't get out."

Dean doesn't know what to say to that, so he stays silent.

**~SPN~SPN~SPN~**

It's only after he's been out of his coma for three days that it even occurs to Sam to ask for a mirror.

"I don't know what I look like," he tells Jess, who looks like she might cry. He hopes she won't, because that'll definitely set him off, and he's tired of having no control over his own tears. It's been three days of riding an emotional roller coaster, and it's exhausting.

"I'll bring one by later. The only one I've got is my compact, and I don't think that should be the first look you get at yourself," she says, and he's absurdly grateful for the thought.

"How long have you —have we been together?"

"A year and a half or so. We met sophomore year."

"Brady introduced us, right? That's what he said."

"Yeah, although we spoke a couple of times before. We were in Philosophy 101 together in freshman year and we were in a discussion group together. I thought you were kind of cute," her voice trembled for a second, but she keeps hold of herself, "but you were so damned shy... you wouldn't talk at all outside of class. You always had really insightful things to say in class, though."

"So I'm a shy, bookish nerd?" he can't help but smile at the thought, and she laughs.

"Actually, yeah, although you're a pretty fair soccer player, too."

"Latin, philosophy and soccer."

"And law. We just passed the LSATs together. You always said you wanted to practice family law."

"It's weird that I can remember LSAT questions, but I don't remember writing my name on the exam paper."

"It'll come back," she says, with the finality of a promise, and he tries very hard to believe her, right up until she comes back that afternoon with a hand-held mirror and places it in his lap.

For a moment he's afraid to pick it up, of what he might see. His hands shake so badly that he has to hold the mirror with both hands to keep it steady, bracing his forearms on his stomach. His face is covered in mostly-healed bruises and cuts. The worst one bisects his left eyebrow and continues onto his cheek a bit, and he thinks it might leave a faint scar. It's easy to concentrate on the injuries, so he forces himself to look at the rest of the face staring back at him. Whatever hopes he had of having all his memories flood back to him are dashed, because he's looking at a stranger with wary-looking hazel eyes. The face is nice-enough looking, he thinks, can't see what Jess obviously sees, but he thinks maybe it wasn't his face that drew her to him. He puts the mirror down, placing the glass against his lap so he won't accidentally catch sight of his reflection again.

"What if I never remember anything?" _Will you still want to stay with me?_ He wants to ask, but doesn't.

"You will, but even if you don't, we'll work it out."

"Sonia says they found a ring in my jacket pocket," he doesn't meet her eyes. "We were gonna get married."

She gets up, stumbles blindly from the room, hand over her mouth in a vain attempt to stifle the sob that wells up from inside her. He watches her go, puts the mirror carefully face-down on the table by his bed, and doesn't bother trying not to cry.

**~SPN~SPN~SPN~**

"So how old are you? I know I'm not supposed to ask, but I figure I can get a free pass this one time, right?"

Jess laughs, and not for the first time Dean thinks she has a really pretty laugh before squelching the thought as hard as he can. Lusting after your amnesiac little brother's girlfriend has to be at the very top of the list of Shitty Things You Don't Do To Your Family. Besides, he knows himself well enough to have figured out that he's kind of got a thing for her only because she's so damned loyal to Sammy, and it's kind of like foxhole-bonding without the grenades and shrapnel. She's having a hard time today, after the whole ring thing, and so now they're all trying to keep it lighter than before, to spare all of them, but it's hard.

"You're not allowed to tell anyone else, but I'll make an exception for you. I'm twenty-two, same as you, although I'm nearly five months older."

Dean looks at her in surprise. "When's your birthday?"

"January 26th."

"No kidding. Mine's the 24th."

"It's the Age of Aquarius," she says seriously, and then they both laugh while Sam looks at them, nose slightly scrunched in confusion at the joke he obviously doesn't share. He looks like he's working out something in his mind, and the next words out of his mouth confirm that.

"So that means you were born in '79," he says to Dean, who nods.

"That's right."

"When's my birthday?"

Dean manages not to flinch. "May 2nd, 1983."

It's the six-month anniversary of their mother's death, and he's always hated that that's how their family sees the day, except that he can never wipe that particular slate clean. Maybe Sam will be able to, he thinks. So far, though, Sam hasn't asked all that many questions about his past, focussing on Jess, as though instinctively he feels that it's safer territory to explore first.

Sam shifts uncomfortably on the bed. He's able to stay awake longer now, but with that improvement comes the realization that he's essentially trapped in his bed until the doctors deem him fit enough to start physiotherapy. All his broken bones are mending, but it's a slow process, and because of the multiple breaks in his ribs, he's sentenced to quasi-immobility for the time being, lest he cause himself even more harm. It makes sense, but Dean knows all too well just how quickly a guy can drive himself nuts, sitting in a hospital bed with nowhere to go.

"You hurting?" It's become a standard question. Sam shakes his head.

"No, I'm okay. The magic machine is working just fine," he adds with a self-deprecating grin. Jess leans forward, wraps a hand around his wrist, her fingers looking small and delicate by contrast.

"You know you can ask about anything you want, right?"

Sam bites his lip, glances at Dean out of the corner of his eye. "Is it just us?"

Dean blinks. "Is what just us?"

"Our family. You haven't mentioned anyone else, and, uh, there's no one else here..." he trails off uncertainly.

"Oh." Dean isn't sure what to say. "No. I mean, yeah. There's our Dad, but apart from him there isn't anyone else, no."

Sam keeps plucking at the blanket, as though he's afraid to voice his next question. "So how come he's not here?"

Dean makes a helpless gesture with both hands, gets up from his chair and paces a couple of steps, ignoring the flare of pain in his ankle as he does so. "I can't get hold of him. I left messages, but he's been on a —a job that took him outside of cell reception, and I think maybe it's taking longer than he thought, or something. I don't know. He'd come if he could, though, I swear."

Jess' mouth has thinned to a colourless line, and Dean knows just how little she thinks of John Winchester for being incommunicado for nearly three weeks when his youngest son nearly died, but there's nothing he can do to change her opinion.

"Right, yeah," Sam says, but he sounds unconvinced. "Did I —did we get along? Do we get along, I mean?"

He rubs at his mouth, wishes he had a cigarette, grimaces. "Sort of. I mean, you're always butting heads. You have a smart mouth on you, and you know Dad —okay, bad choice of words. Dad's just Dad. He's an ex-Marine, doesn't like backtalk."

"Is that why he's not here?"

"'Course not. He cares about you. Hell, he spent all our lives making sure you were safe," he snaps, doesn't miss the sharp look he gets from Jess at his slip-up, and curses himself. Sam also gives him a look he can't quite decipher, but doesn't say anything. "I'm going to get a cup of coffee. Can I get you one?" he asks Jess, who shakes her head and glares at him, letting him know in no uncertain terms that he's not fooling anyone.

He doesn't dare look back at Sam's face, turns and just barely manages not to sprint for the door, escapes to the shelter of the outdoors and the empty sky. He lights a cigarette, leans against the rough wall, and inhales the smoke as though it might somehow fill the gaping hole in his chest where his family used to be.


	4. Chapter 4

Once again, thank you so much to everyone who's taken the time to review! Feedback is awesome, as I'm sure you're all well aware, and I am doing my very best to respond to all the comments. Well, to the ones who leave a reply link, anyway. ;)

Hope you enjoy the latest chapter!

**Chapter 4**

"I think we might have to move," Jess says over breakfast one morning. Dean's head jerks up in obvious surprise.

"What?"

"It's a third-floor walk-up, and even if Sam's going to be a lot more mobile by the time he gets out of the hospital, I don't know if he'll be able to manage all those stairs. Not at first, anyway."

Dean nods, more in acknowledgement of what she's said than because he agrees with her. He's busy carefully scraping butter onto his toast, a large cup of black coffee by his plate. Another small way in which he and Sam are so different: Sam made her laugh the first time she introduced him to the concept of vanilla lattes, eyes widening as though the idea of a coffee that was comprised mostly of foamy milk and sugar and artificial flavouring was completely alien to him. She laughed even harder at his expression when he first found out how much the cost, too. Dean treats coffee as though it's a tool, keeps it simple but well-made and effective. He brews a mean cup of coffee, she's discovered, and since most mornings he's awake, showered and dressed long before she is (although she's not exactly the type to sleep in), he's taken to preparing the coffee and the rudiments of breakfast with the casual disregard of someone who's accustomed to doing it but doesn't necessarily take much pleasure in the activity.

"Where were you thinking of going?"

"I'm not sure," she admits. "Part of me is kind of resisting the idea, because, you know, what if coming back here triggers some memories for him? He's supposed to be surrounded by familiar things, but I don't think we'd be able to manage getting him to physiotherapy several days a week. Not with all those stairs."

He nods again, admitting the practicality of what she's saying. "I guess we should start looking pretty soon, then," he says, surprising her again.

He has a habit of doing that. She's not sure what she was expecting, but it wasn't for him to assume that she was including him in her plans for Sam, and now she's not entirely sure how she feels about that. She certainly isn't expecting the sudden surge of jealousy, like a burst of warmth under her breastbone. Sam is _hers_, dammit, and no stranger, no matter how charming and mysterious, no matter what blood tie he claims, is going to take him away from her. Dean looks up from where he's been staring into his coffee cup, and maybe he's more insightful than she gives him credit for, because he clears his throat mildly.

"That is, if you want me to help."

She wants to refuse, to tell him to take his help and shove it, to go back where he came from and never come back. It's unfair of her, she knows, but she can't help but feel that, before Dean came into her life, things were good, and now Sam is lying in a hospital bed, broken beyond recognition, and maybe even beyond salvage. Even though she knows it's not true, it feels as though all of this should somehow be Dean's fault.

"Sure, okay," she says. "We'll come up with a list of criteria, start looking around. The sooner we can move, the better. I don't want us to still be in boxes by the time Sam's out of the hospital."

He glances around at the kitchen. "Yeah. You kind of have a lot of stuff. Moving must be a bitch."

She's a bit nonplussed, since she's always prided herself on being something of a minimalist. Then again, Sam didn't have much by way of belongings when they first started dating, she recalls. When they moved in together, all his stuff had consisted of was a duffel bag full of clothes, a box of his school books, a sad-looking potted spider plant, and a single picture of his family, standing under the tree in front of his childhood home. He'd been living in a furnished dorm room, and didn't have so much as a poster on the walls. She'd wondered about it at the time, the anonymity of the room, as though he was afraid to leave even so much as a hint of personality behind. Now, watching his brother cart around his entire life in a duffel bag and his car's trunk, she's beginning to realize that what she took for individual idiosyncrasies are in fact habits ingrained from childhood.

"Good thing I have you to help me move the boxes," she rejoins evenly, and he lets out a bark of laughter.

~SPN~SPN~SPN~

Recovering from a car accident is nothing like how they show it on television, Sam discovers quickly enough. He remembers television programs, remembers plotlines and characters, but can't remember where or when he watched them. He remembers that characters in comas wake up right away and are lucid, and then there's a cut, or the screen fades to black, and the show skips over the uncomfortable details. No one wants to see catheters and IV lines, or wants to experience the full extent of the humiliation of trying to use a bedpan for the first time without making a mess. He develops the beginnings of a pressure sore on one hip from lying too long in the same position, and that means more bandages and antibiotics and being manhandled by nurses.

He tries not to complain too much, remembers that stoicism is what's called for in this sort of situation. Except that he can't manage it a lot of the time. It's as though someone or something has access to a switch in his head, and the moment it's flipped he has the humiliating tendency to burst into tears. There's no controlling it, no gauging what might set him off. Some days he can try talking to Dean about their family without any trouble, and other days he can't even manage talking about the weather without tears. Some days it's all he can do to just keep his eyes open, and on those days he can't bring himself to talk at all.

"What about our mother?" he asks, on what he hopes will prove to be what they've all taken to calling a 'good day.' Dean has been there for about fifteen minutes, trying to coax him to eat some of the dubiously-coloured mush that the hospital has provided as a breakfast. He thinks it might be oatmeal. Dean's mouth thins to a line.

"She died when we were little. There was a fire."

"Oh. How old were y— were we?"

It's only been a few days, but he's learning to read Dean. He's not sure if he's remembering on some unconscious level, or if Dean is just that open a book, but he can tell when he's hitting a nerve. Dean feels familiar in a way that Jess doesn't, but Sam isn't sure that he's not deluding himself somehow, trying to convince himself he can remember in order to make them all feel better. He doesn't say anything, watches as Dean wipes a hand over his mouth, averts his eyes.

"You were a baby. Six months old, to the day."

"So what happened?"

Dean glances at him, so quickly Sam isn't sure he didn't imagine it, and the look on his face is so frightening for a moment that Sam wants to take the question back. Dean clears his throat, looks as though he wants to start pacing again —another nervous habit— except that even Sam noticed how badly he was limping when he came in today, so he stays put in his chair.

"Look, Sammy... shit with our family is complicated. It's not that I don't want to tell you, but it's a lot to take in. I want to make sure you're okay before I dump it all in your lap."

"Must be pretty heavy stuff. Jess says I never told her any of it."

Dean bites his lip. "Yeah. It's not exactly a family secret, but it comes close. We just... we don't talk about it much. Never have."

"So what can you tell me?"

~SPN~SPN~SPN~

Sam's having a bad day. The first few days they weren't so apparent: he was drugged and out of it, and slept most of the time, anyway. Today, though, he's awake and staring at the window in his room. From that angle he can't see much except the sky and a tree branch, Dean knows, but he's staring as thought it's the most fascinating sight in the world. Jess is sitting by the bed, one leg tucked under her on her chair, clasping his fingers loosely, but she's run out of things to say, of ways to try to draw Sam out of wherever it is he goes when he's like this. He pulls up a second chair, parks himself in it, and puts a hand on Sam's arm.

"Hey Sammy. So I guess today isn't a talking day, huh?"

There's no response, and he sees Jess surreptitiously wipe at her eyes.

"That's okay," he tries to sound encouraging. "We Winchesters have always been the strong, silent type. Well, you were a chatterbox when you were a kid, never shut up once you got going, but you kind of started taking more after Dad when you hit puberty. Except that Dad never mastered the art of making bitch faces the way you do."

Sam just blinks, and he takes that as encouragement to keep going.

"So did Jess tell you that you guys are going to be moving house?" he looks over at her, and she shakes her head minutely. "No? Well, I gotta tell you, I've seen the new place, and it's pretty sweet. Got a little garden and everything. You play your cards right, and you can have yourselves some pretty awesome barbecues this summer. You're lucking out, too, because you don't have to move any of that heavy shit you and she accumulated over the last year. Seriously, man, I've never seen so much stuff in one place that didn't belong to some suburban family or other."

Jess snorts. "Just because your family appears to have lived like monks..."

He stiffens a bit, shrugs, fakes a grin. "We're minimalists, sweetheart. Nothing but the bare necessities."

"A duffel bag and a backpack?"

"Hey, there's more to it than that."

Jess leans forward, squeezes Sam's hand. "He's trying to be all mysterious about it, and it's working. I didn't think I could be more curious about your family, but now that I've met your brother I think I know even less about you than I did before."

"It's part of our charm," Dean tells her seriously, and she scoffs, but Sam doesn't so much as twitch.

It's all normal, the doctors have told them. Or, well, as normal as you can get in this sort of situation. He's just overwhelmed, and the only way he can cope is to shut down, like a computer rebooting, or something. He's just not used to Sam not talking, and neither is Jess by the looks of it. Sam's tools and weapons of choice have always been words, and seeing him silent and _elsewhere_ is creeping him the fuck out.

"It'll be nice for you to have a proper place to stay —not that your apartment wasn't great," he adds hastily as Jess glares, "but this place is practically like your own house. We moved around so much when we were kids, we never really had that sort of thing. But I bet you could even, like, plant a garden the way you wanted to. Remember when... okay, poor choice of words. But when you were, like, five or six, Dad rented this place for about a month in the summer which had a tiny yard. It was really small, barely ten feet across, but you loved it. You wanted to plant flowers, but Dad was —busy. Besides, he and I never got off on that girly stuff. So one day I couldn't find you anywhere in the house, and you weren't at the park next door, and I was just starting to get worried when I found you coming back to the house with a bucketful of dandelions. You'd dug them up by the roots from some neighbour's yard —I think her name was Talbot, and man was that lady happy you weeded her garden, she even paid you a dollar." He chuckles. "I don't think you knew they were weeds, or if you knew you didn't care. You thought they were pretty."

Jess is smiling, eyes bright. "Well, that explains the dandelion bouquet he got me last summer."

Dean's head jerks up. "Really?"

She shrugs ruefully. "He..." she corrects herself, forces herself to look at Sam. "You went out and picked a ton of dandelions and tied them up with a bow, and you told me they get a really bad rep for nothing. They really are pretty, when you take the time to look at them."

Out of the corner of his eye Dean can see that tears are threatening to spill from Sam's eyes. He rubs Sam's arm. "It's okay, Sammy. But when you get better, just know that I'm going to tease you for being a gigantic girl for the rest of your life."

For the first time Sam's eyes focus on him, his head turning fractionally to face him, but he still doesn't say anything, the silence thicker than a wall.

~SPN~SPN~SPN~

"You guys are lifesavers," Jess tells Charlie-the-asshole and Brady as they wrestle a chest of drawers into the U-Haul truck she rented for the occasion.

Dean is surprised at how many people have showed up to help Jess move. Then again, almost everything about Jess is a surprise for him, and it makes him wonder just how far away from "normal" his life really is. He's always known that his family lived on the fringes, but having been immersed in what's as close to "normal" as he's ever going to get for the past six weeks, it's driving home just how alien this world really is. In the normal, civilian world, apparently it's normal for eight or ten friends to drop whatever they're doing over their weekend to come help someone move in exchange for beer and pizza at the end of the day. It's a social thing, too, he's realizing. They're laughing and joking as they do it, jostling each other and cat-calling and having fun, as though it's not an imposition on their time. Dean can't imagine having that many friends at all, let alone having any of them help him move furniture.

"Need a hand with that?" Charlie-the-asshole asks a minute later, gesturing to a bookcase, and Dean thinks that he may need to come up with a more charitable name for the guy, because it turns out he's not really an asshole, just a guy who's trying to be there for his friends.

"Sure, thanks."

They're all treading carefully around him, because he's the stranger in their midst, but for the most part they're friendly enough. Charlie grabs one end of the bookcase, and together they negotiate it down the winding flight of stairs, until Dean fails to navigate one of the sharper corners, and pain flares from his ankle right up to his hip. He swears, stumbles, catches himself against the wall on one shoulder, trying to keep hold of the bookcase so that he doesn't send Charlie tumbling down the remaining stairs.

"Dean! You okay?"

"Fuck," he tries to breathe through the pain, feeling sweat break out over his entire body. "Gimme a sec."

Brady saves him, coming up the stairs from where he's just finished loading a box. He takes in the situation at a glance, runs up the remaining steps and grabs Dean's end of the bookcase. "I got it. You can let go."

He's in too much pain to feel the full extent of his humiliation, sinks to a seated position against the wall, eyes closed, breathing hard. A couple of minutes later Brady comes back to find him.

"Come on, you can't stay here, someone'll step on you, or drop something heavy on your head, and one Winchester in the hospital is enough," he grabs Dean's elbow and pulls him upright, helps him up the stairs without asking for permission, which is just fine by Dean. He parks him on one of the remaining chairs, raids Jess' freezer for ice, and wraps it in a ratty cloth. "Ankle?" he asks, and Dean nods.

"Fuck," is all he can manage, gripping the edges of the chair so hard his knuckles have turned white. The pain has gone from white-hot heat to a steady throb, but it's still bad enough that he can feel every beat of his heart resonate in his leg.

"I'll bet," Brady pulls off his shoe, wraps the cloth around his ankle with a skill that speaks to what the world might be missing out on now that he's dropped out of med school. "Bad break?"

He nods again, takes a breath to steady himself, swallows the handful of Advil Brady hands him dry. "Construction accident. Fucked up the ligaments, too. Bone fragment ripped 'em up pretty good inside the foot. They were talking surgery last time I went for a consult."

"Did they try cortisone?"

"Yeah. They can't give me any more, not without fucking up my retinas or whatever else cortisone does to fuck you up." He's not sure why it's suddenly easy to talk about this with Brady, even if it's not exactly the whole truth. Maybe it's because he's as close to a doctor as Dean is going to get.

"That sucks. Look, if you're anything like your brother, you're going to try to help here until it kills you, so will you do me a favour and stay put? We've got this covered, and we're almost done anyway. You've already qualified for the above and beyond the call of duty award today. You could have easily sat this out, and you've moved more heavy shit than is probably medically recommended anyway. I've seen sheets of paper with more colour than you."

Normally he'd protest that he's just fine, thank you, but he's not sure he can stand up without passing out, so he acquiesces with a grimace. "Okay, fine."

By the time they're done the pain is manageable again, but Brady insists on giving him an arm to lean on to go back down the stairs, and in the end Dean has to admit to himself that he probably wouldn't have made it on his own this time. For the most part he's able to function just fine, crap ankle or no, but he hasn't exactly been taking care of it the way he's supposed to ever since Sammy ended up in the hospital. That's going to have to change, he supposes, if he wants to be even remotely of help once Sam is discharged. If he can't walk, then the burden of making sure Sam is taken care of will fall to Jess, and that is just not on.

If nothing else, Winchesters take care of their own.

~SPN~SPN~SPN~

Brady hands him a beer at the new place, which is a jumble of boxes and half-assembled furniture. He insisted that Dean sit out the rest of the move, and strapped up his foot in a way that even Dean has to admit goes a long way to making the pain bearable. The whole group has sprawled out in the small garden, and no one seems particularly put out that he's stopped helping. To the contrary, a few of the girls are embarrassingly sympathetic, and they laugh when ducks his head, cheeks flaming, muttering that he's fine.

"Looks like blushing is a family trait," one of them says, nudging his shoulder playfully. Her name is Lauren, he thinks, and she seems nice enough. She's got a sweet face with kind brown eyes, a sort of soft, round body with a little extra fat in places at which he probably shouldn't be staring too hard. She's studying sociology, about which Dean knows absolutely nothing, but that doesn't seem to phase her too much, and so far she's been happy to talk about music (she has shit taste, but apparently she thinks it's funny that he thinks so) and keep things on the light side. Until now, that is.

"Sam's adorable when he's flustered." She winces a bit as she realizes what she's said, takes a pull from her beer bottle to cover up. Over in another corner of the garden, another couple of girls —Tricia and Sonya, if memory serves— are huddled up with Jess, along with Charlie-the-maybe-not-an-asshole. From the expressions on their faces, it's not hard to guess what they're talking about. Lauren seems like her mind's on the same track.

"So... how's he doing? I mean, we're all trying not to shove into you guys' space and all, but Sam's our friend too. I get that you guys are private. Sam... he never said anything about himself —hell, I didn't even know he had a brother, or didn't spring fully-formed from the ground when he was twenty-one or something," she grins ruefully. "And I get that you're the same way. It's just... we care about him, and we want to help."

He takes a drink of beer, twists the bottle around in his hands. It's going to take more than this to get him buzzed, and it's going to take more of a buzz for him to feel okay about discussing his brother's health with some girl he barely knows. Still, these kids have all come out and they're so damned earnest and eager to please —they remind him of Sam, he realizes with a jolt. All wide-eyed and innocent in spite of whatever darkness each of them knows. Even if they haven't seen what he has, Dean knows better than to think their lives are all sunshine and roses: no one's life is ever that good. So he shrugs, doesn't meet her eyes.

"Physically he's getting better. Another couple of weeks, and they're talking about letting him go outpatient, depending on test results and whatever."

"Well, that's something. What about—?" she gestures with the hand holding her beer bottle, and it's not hard to guess what she's asking. He shrugs again.

"It's not —he doesn't... I don't know."

"He still doesn't remember anything?"

He shakes his head. "No."

"That sucks. I can't even imagine how hard it must be," she says, and he blinks, because he's not entirely sure how her hand ended up on his thigh, and damn if it doesn't actually kind of feel nice, and he squirms a bit. She pulls her hand away, just a fraction. "Sorry."

"No, it's okay," he says hastily. "I'm, uh... it's a bit weird, you know? I mean, you're my little brother's friend, and I barely know you, and—" he's babbling, and that's usually more Sam's thing, and her hand is back on his thigh and _damn._

"Sure, I'm Sam's friend, but I'm Jess' friend too, and I have lots of other friends. None of that means you can't be my friend too, right?"

His throat is dry, because his thoughts haven't exactly run to 'friend,' and what kind of sorry son of a bitch thinks about things like this when his little brother's in the hospital barely able to talk because he's too fucking traumatized. She seems to be able to read his mind, though, and smiles.

"It's not like we're instant friends or anything, but since I get the feeling you'll be sticking around for a while, I figure it might not be a bad idea to get to know each other better."

Dean's brain thinks it's a terrible idea, but right now that's about the only part of him that does. Reason dictates that Lauren can't be a casual fuck, that even allowing himself to think that is borrowing trouble he doesn't need. He glances up to where Charlie-the-maybe-not-entirely-an-asshole has an arm around Jess' shoulders, letting her lean on him, then looks back at Lauren, who's got her bottom lip caught in her teeth, watching for his reaction. Brady is lounging a few feet away, very carefully not looking at either of them, contemplating his beer bottle as though it contains all the answers to the universe.

"Yeah, okay," he breathes, and thinks he might just be making one of the worst mistakes of his life.


	5. Chapter 5

Hi folks!

I'm leaving town for the weekend, so I thought I'd try to get one more chapter in under the wire, and voilà! Thank you so much for all your reviews: they mean more to me than I can ever express. It's no fun writing if it feels like it's all falling into a void. :)

**Chapter 5**

"Hey, Dad, it's me. Dean. I mean, obviously you know it's me, who else would— anyway, I guess you must've got my messages, 'cause your voicemail isn't full anymore. So, Sam's getting better, physically, anyway. Sort of. He, uh, he still doesn't remember anything. I'm kind of running out of ways to not tell him about what we do. The state he's in, I think it might screw him up even more. I don't know. He's still Sammy, though, smart as a whip, and asking questions... Look, uh, I know you wouldn't be keeping radio silence unless it was important, but I... we could really use you here. Call me back? Or, you know, maybe you could come? Anyway, I guess I'll talk to you later."

Dean flips the phone shut, staring at it for a moment. He's out in Jess' yard (sort of his yard now too, he supposes), because that's the only place he can smoke in peace. She's resolutely not smoking anymore, something about the fact that she quit for Sam's sake or whatever, so he doesn't want to make her new place reek like an ash tray. He takes a drag off his cigarette, flips his phone open again. He hesitates before dialling, then shrugs and does it anyway, feeling his shoulders sag with relief when someone picks up right away on the other end. "Hey, Bobby."

"Dean!" Bobby sounds pleased and annoyed at the same time, which is about par for the course. "Boy, it's been two weeks. You aimin' to make me age prematurely?"

"Too late for that," Dean grins, falling back into the familiar pattern of joking around with something like gratitude.

"Smart-ass. If I was there, I'd kick your ass from here 'til next week. How you doin'?"

He shrugs, even if Bobby can't see him. "I'm fine. I was just wondering if you'd heard from Dad lately."

"No, I haven't. I left him a couple messages giving him a piece of my mind, but he ain't called. Might be because I gave him a piece of my mind. I'm sorry, boy," he can hear the genuine regret in Bobby's voice. "You mean he hasn't called you yet?"

"Nah, not yet. He's gotta be caught up in something, you know? It's gotta be big, or else he'd have called," he uses the butt of his cigarette to light up another, then grinds it under his heel. Now he's chain-smoking. Fan-fucking-tastic.

He can practically hear Bobby rolling his eyes. "I'll keep checking, ask some of my contacts if he's been in touch. The minute I hear anything, I'll let you know. Now tell me about Sam, dammit, before I lose what little hair I got left. How's he doing?"

"Uh, not too bad, I guess. He started running a fever yesterday, so they're watching him a bit more carefully, giving him antibiotics. He was supposed to start physical therapy so they could see when they can release him, but that's kind of on hold for now. So... we're kind of in it for the long haul."

There's a moment of silence. "How's he doing, you know, mentally?"

Trust Bobby to cut to the chase. Dean blows smoke through his nose, eyes screwed shut. "Honestly? Not good. He still doesn't remember anything, and it's fucking him up. I mean, more than he already is. I don't... he's still Sammy, you know? I can see him in there, but it's not exactly him, either. He's trying, but I don't think it's a question of trying, no matter how much we all want it to be. He's frustrated and sick, and... I don't know, Bobby. I don't know if I'm making things worse by being around, or what, but I can't just leave him, can I?"

"'Course not!" Bobby snaps. "It ain't that girlfriend of his makin' you uncomfortable, is it?"

"No, no, it's not that. Jess is... well, I can tell why Sam fell for her. She's a pretty cool chick, but it's hard for her too, you know?"

"Okay, so what's with you?"

He desperately wants to get up and pace, but it's only been a couple of days since he nearly killed himself and Charlie on the stairs, and just the idea makes his leg ache. He sucks on his cigarette instead. "I don't know. It's just hard to watch him like this, and I think he knows it and he's putting pressure on himself and it's just making things worse. He gets these really bad headaches, and his moods are all over the place, and sometimes I feel like I'm just causing more harm than good."

"You tell him about hunting yet?"

"No. I don't know how. He's barely coping with the idea of a regular, civilian life that he can't remember. I don't know what it'll do to him if I tell him that, oh, by the way, our mother was killed by some supernatural thing and that's why we don't talk about it, and that Dad's off somewhere chasing down the thing, or maybe some other supernatural nasty, but don't worry, I'm sure he's fine even if he hasn't so much as given a sign of life in the past six weeks."

"All right, all right," Bobby says, his tone placating. "Take a breath, boy, don't get upset."

"I'm not upset!"

"Sure you're not, princess. Look, Dean, I don't mean to pry or nothin', but six weeks in the hospital... that ain't cheap. You boys all right for money?"

Dean snorts. "Sam has insurance. Actual, real insurance, can you believe it? It's not going to cover everything, but right now it looks like he's okay."

"How about you? It ain't like you can use your usual methods of earning cash. You hard up?"

He rubs the back of his neck. "Uh, actually, I've sort of been looking around for, uh, you know, regular work. Sammy's not... well, even if he does get his memories back, he's gonna need a lot of time to get back on his feet properly, and Jess still has to go back to school in the fall. There's a local bar needs a bartender, and they don't seem too picky about the fact that I don't have a CV or whatever, just so long as I know how to mix drinks."

"All right then. You let me know if you need anything, all right? I mean it."

"Yeah, I know. Thanks, Bobby."

When he finally ends the call, he feels about fifty pounds lighter.

**~SPN~SPN~SPN~**

Jess has a nagging suspicion that she might, contrary to all her previous beliefs, be a terrible person. She's been sitting next to Sam's bed for less than thirty minutes, watching him sleep restlessly, his face flushed from the fever he's been running for two days straight now, and all she wants to do is leave. She wants to go home and lose herself in unpacking, in the comfort of putting her things (their things, she corrects herself) in order. She doesn't want to be here, next to the man that, less than two months ago, she was going to marry, and guilt coils inside her stomach, making her feel slightly ill. She should want to be here, she thinks. Sam is sick and hurting and he needs all the support he can get, and all she can think of is how much she wishes none of this had happened and that he was still the goofy, shy kid she had a crush on in their first class together.

As if sensing her guilt, Sam stirs on the bed, makes a soft moaning noise before shifting around again, visibly uncomfortable, and she reaches out to grasp his hand, lying limp by his side. "Sam?"

He doesn't open his eyes, but at the sound of her voice he settles a bit, squeezes her fingers. She relaxes, stroking the back of his hand with her thumb, trying not to think about how it feels too warm in her grip, the skin fragile like too-thin paper. There's a soft scuffing sound by the door, and she looks up to see Dean coming in, leaning heavily on his cane, which she's learned by now means he has to be in a serious amount of pain.

"Sorry I'm late. Interview with the owner of that bar kind of ran late. Hey, Sammy," he says softly, sliding into the chair on the other side of the bed, but not loud enough to wake his brother if he's really asleep.

"How did it go?" she asks, realizing she's holding her breath without quite knowing what answer she wants to hear. He grins and winks at her, and the look is so smug that for a moment she kind of wants to smack it off his face.

"Like a hot knife in butter. Between my innate charm and spectacular drink-mixing skills, by the end she was practically begging me to work for her."

She rolls her eyes, feels a smile tug at the corners of her mouth. "You think you're pretty cute, don't you?"

"Cute? I think I'm adorable," he smirks, and she rolls her eyes again, turns back to Sam pointedly. His expression turns worried almost immediately, and damn if that doesn't just make her feel more guilty. Apparently it's a Winchester talent. "How is he?"

"The fever's been getting worse. They think it might be a staph infection or something. They're going to remove the catheter tomorrow if he's not better, just in case that's what's causing it. Apparently it's pretty common."

He makes a face. "I'm getting pretty sick of them telling us how common all these problems are."

"I think it's meant to make us feel better, to think it's routine and easy to take care of," she says, and he snorts, echoing her own sentiments on the matter. "When are you supposed to start work?"

"Next Monday. I already told her about Sam, and she's been pretty cool about it. It's not like the bar hours conflict too much with visiting hours here, and anyway, he's going to be coming back home soon, right? So I figure I can stay with him during the day while you're in class or whatever, and then you can be there when I'm at work."

"You've obviously got this all planned out."

His head jerks up in surprise at her tone. "Uh, what?"

"Nothing, it's stupid," she shrugs, feeling petty and ridiculous.

"Are you mad?"

Definitely a Winchester thing. "No. It's stupid. I'm tired and it's stupid and I shouldn't have said anything."

He's blinking at her as though she's suddenly sprouted a second head. "Is this because I didn't tell you first?"

She shrugs again, and doesn't really want to feel like she's turning into her mother, all passive-aggressive silence and expecting men to read her mind. "No. Okay, yes. A bit. I told you it was stupid."

He rubs the back of his neck, clearly uncomfortable. "Uh. Okay. Umm, sorry?" he offers, though he's clearly still not quite getting why she's upset. She sighs.

"It's a good idea. I just... next time, could you just maybe talk to me first before you make decisions that affect my life?"

He blinks at her again, his expression not unlike one he'd wear if she'd just broadsided him with a Mac truck. She wonders if he's ever had to make decisions that affected anyone but himself before, and if that's not what the problem might be, here. Sam is restless on the bed between them, lips moving silently as though he's trying to talk to someone they can't see, and Dean reflexively rubs his arm, soothing. She's watched him do this a thousand times by now, if not more, the gesture natural, paternal, even. She knows just enough about Sam's family to know that his mother died when he was a baby, and that even if their father raised Dean, it was Dean who raised Sam. His behaviour makes more sense that way, she tells herself: either it was his father making decisions, or else he was the one making them for Sam. No discussion ever needed.

"Sure. Okay. Yeah," Dean says to her, jolting her out of her pop-psychology moment, and she flushes, not even sure why she's embarrassed.

She opens her mouth to apologize, and that's when Sam starts screaming.

**~SPN~SPN~SPN~**

Women are a freaking mystery. That's the conclusion Dean inevitably comes to every time he has to deal with a woman who's not a witness in an investigation (and sometimes during an investigation too) for longer than a one-night stand. He's mostly managed to avoid Lauren for the past couple of days, because he's just not sure what she wants. She said something about having a coffee together, and even though he knows people do this all the time, well... Dean Winchester doesn't _do_ coffee. Coffee is not a social experience, in his world. So until he figures out what to do with Lauren that doesn't involve alcohol and a motel bed, he's been playing it cool, which in turn has led to other complications, namely, that she appears to have got her feelings hurt. Which is just great. Like he has time to figure out how to un-hurt her feelings when he has all the rest of this crap to deal with.

Women.

The entire female species is a mystery, and Jessica Moore is no exception to the rule. Even though he's had six weeks and change to get used to her, he still feels he doesn't have the whole picture. She's a great chick: hot and smart and obviously attached to Sammy. Loves his little brother like he's her other half (and maybe he is, this isn't Dean's area of expertise). But she's also really hard to figure out, doesn't say what she means half the time, thinks it's weird that he's never operated a washing machine that doesn't take coins (and told him laughingly that she'd had to teach Sam the same thing), keeps asking awkward questions about their lives and about why Dad hasn't come yet.

In short, she's making him uncomfortable, and if he's going to be staying long-term, it's going to suck. So he figured out a way to make it work that would mostly keep them out of each other's way, and now she's mad at him for —what? Not talking to her about it before? He thought she'd be happy not to have him in her hair all the time, and... whatever. Women are complicated, that's all there is to it.

He doesn't have time to get into an argument with her about whatever bug it is that's crawled up her ass anyway, because Sam picks that moment to start thrashing on his bed, yelling incoherently about something only he can see. Dean's on his feet and leaning over him in the blink of an eye, pushing on the call button on the off-chance no one heard his little brother screaming bloody murder. Jess is up too, her efforts to calm Sam about as effective as his own. For all he's sick and weak, Sam's a tall guy, and he's putting up a hell of a fight with whatever he thinks is coming after him. He catches Dean in the collar bone with an elbow, and damned if that isn't going to bruise come the morning.

"Sam, Sammy come on! You're dreaming," he tries to make himself heard above the screaming. "You're okay. Come, on, Sam! Sammy!"

Seconds later they're both being gently but firmly shoved aside by a nurse while the curtains are pulled close around Sam's bed. Whatever she was feeling before, she's obviously forgotten about it now, holding onto his arm with both hands, watching anxiously as though, if she stares hard enough, she might be able to see through the curtain. He knows exactly how she feels.

"He'll be fine," he says, as much for his own benefit as for hers. "It's just the fever giving him nightmares. He used to get 'em all the time as a kid, especially when he was sick."

She nods mutely, and he wraps and arm around her shoulders, and he steers her carefully out into the hallway before she finally finds her voice. "I think I need a cigarette after all."

"We'll split one. Everyone knows cigarettes you bum off someone else totally don't count," he keeps his tone light, although right now the furthest thing from his mind is anything that'll take him further away from Sam.

"We should stay, just until we're sure he's okay."

"Yeah, okay."

It feels a lot like the first night he got to Stanford, waiting anxiously for news of Sam. This time, the doctor puts him out of his misery much sooner, coming out with a reassuring smile.

"You can go back in. He's sedated, but he's asking for you. We're starting him on more aggressive antibiotics, and we had to remove the catheter, which is most likely the source of the infection. You should get him to sleep, if he can."

Dean barely listens, is already making his way back to Sam's side. His brother is making valiant efforts to keep his eyes open, but it's a losing battle. He smiles weakly when he sees Dean and Jess, bites his lip, self-conscious, but his eyes are glassy and unfocussed. Dean leans up against the bed.

"How you feeling, drama queen?" he nudges Sam gently.

"You okay?" Jess is right beside him, her shoulder brushing up against his, and Sam nods tiredly.

"Yeah. It was just a nightmare, I guess. It just felt real, you know?"

Dean reaches out and smooths the hair from his forehead. Two months ago he'd never have done this, and Sam would never have put up with that kind of touchy-feely bullshit, but this Sam doesn't remember that, and Dean is starting to really not care about how things were before.

"Fever'll do that to you. You remember what it was about?"

Sam just kind of shakes his head, starts plucking at the sheets the way he did when he was just newly out of the coma, and it makes Dean's stomach flutter uncomfortably to watch him, well, regress like this. He doesn't meet Dean's eyes, speaks so softly Dean has to lean forward to catch what he's saying.

"There was a fire..."

**~SPN~SPN~SPN~**

Sam's head is throbbing. That's nothing unusual these days, and for all he knows it wasn't unusual before —although Jess and Dean both tell him that he didn't get headaches often before. The fever isn't helping, although he's grateful to be rid of the catheter, even if relieving himself is now a more complex production than before. He checks the clock, tries not to be disappointed when he sees he's not allowed more pain meds for at least another hour and a half, and shifts uncomfortably on the bed, waiting for Dean or Jess to show up. It feels as though he's always waiting these days. Waiting for a nurse, a doctor, Dean, Jess, waiting for his brain to catch up with his body. He's had to listen to countless well-meaning speeches to be patient, to wait and it'll all come back.

Right now he's not sure that he wants it to come back. He's still jittery from the fever-induced nightmares of last night, trying to puzzle out what could have spawned them, and that isn't helping his head ache any less. The dreams have been coming and going for days, but last night, maybe because of the fever, they felt incredibly real, as though he was living the same horrific ordeal over and over, right up until the doctor pumped him full of some sort of sedative to get him to sleep. He's still obsessing over it, turning it around in his mind, when Dean slips into the room, moving more easily than Sam has seen him do in days, which means his leg must not be hurting anymore. He plasters a smile on his face, but judging by Dean's expression, it's not all that convincing.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure. Anything you want, Sammy."

"You know, you're the only one who calls me that."

"That's because I know you hate it," Dean grins, and Sam snorts. "Was that what you wanted to ask?"

"No. I wanted to know, when our Mom died... you said there was a fire?"

Dean blanches a bit, but he nods. "Yeah. It, uh, it started in your nursery, and she died trying to save you."

He doesn't know how to ask without sounding crazy. "Did she... I mean, was there anything, I don't know... Look, it's going to sound insane, but I need to know if there was anything strange about the fire."

Dean gives him a sharp look. "You remember something?"

He shakes his head. "I was six months old. How could I remember that?"

"So what are you asking?" Tension is rolling off Dean in waves, and Sam is sure it's not his imagination.

"I don't know. I'm just trying to figure if the fever's messing with me, or what, like whatever you told me about Mom just got mixed up in my head and is making me dream weird stuff. It's... it's not the first time I dreamed that, but last night... I don't know, it felt real, even if it wasn't."

"You dreamt about the fire that," Dean stumbles a bit on the words, "that killed Mom?"

"I think so. I saw a fire, and a woman dressed in a white night dress, and she was bleeding... Dean?"

Whatever colour was left in Dean's face has drained away, and he drops into a chair by the bed, lips pressed together. He gestures to Sam to keep going, leans on his knees, still listening.

"It's crazy, right?" he tries to sit up further, but his head just throbs more, so he lies back down. "It's gotta just be a nightmare, it doesn't make any sense, because I was looking up at her —she was on the ceiling, and that's just not possible."

"Sam..."

He swallows hard, hearing the confirmation in Dean's voice. "Oh, God. It is true, isn't it? That's how she died?"

Dean nods, and Sam can see his throat working, trying to hold back whatever's threatening to spill from his mouth. "Sam, you were a baby. How could you remember seeing Mom like that? You never remembered it before."

He swallows again, trying to rid himself of the vivid imagery that keeps flashing behind his eyes. "I don't think I'm remembering Mom. I don't know what it is, because it can't be real. It's not her I'm seeing in my dreams, Dean.

"It's Jess."


	6. Chapter 6

Okay, so I came up with another chapter. I think the plot will actually start moving forward in Chapter 7, so yay! I know some of you have been waiting for that to happen. So have I! ;)

In related news, I know I'm _way_ behind on answering comments for Chapter 5. I am going to get to that ASAP, I promise!

**~SPN~SPN~SPN~**

**Chapter 6**

"You feeling up to an extra visitor today?" Brady is leaning one elbow against the door frame, smiling easily.

"Uh, yeah," Sam nods. "Sure."

He straightens carefully in his bed, fumbling with the controls so he can sit up. It takes three tries, his fingers refusing to move the way he wants them to, but he's thankful that Brady doesn't make a move to help him, just waits patiently until he gets it himself. Apart from Dean and Jess, Brady's pretty much the only visitor he has. Some of Jess' other friends (his friends too, he supposes, but it doesn't feel that way) drop by every so often, but mostly they're uncomfortable, have no idea what to say to him, and he doesn't know what to say to them either. He gets the impression that he met them all through Jess and not the other way around, that they're more her friends than his. Brady, though, doesn't seem to be all that bothered by the fact Sam can't remember him. Or, rather, he's being a lot more understanding about it than Sam thought anyone could be.

"Good day?" Brady drops easily into a chair, crosses one ankle over his knee, his expression mildly curious. Sam makes a noncommittal motion with one hand.

"Yeah, I guess."

"You just guess?"

He shrugs. "I dunno. It's hard to tell the difference, sometimes." He scrunches up his nose, scrubs at the bridge with his index finger. "I'm sorry. I must be pretty lousy company these days."

"You're assuming you were good company before," Brady smirks, and Sam lets out a surprised huff of laughter.

"Asshole."

"And now you're insulting me on top of it. I honestly don't know why I put up with you."

"Must be my natural charisma," Sam quips, trying to find a comfortable position in which to settle on the bed, even though he knows there isn't one, not really.

"How's the pain today?"

He shrugs again. "Not too bad."

"You levelling with me?"

Sam nods. Brady's the only one of his friends who ever wants to hear the unvarnished truth. It took a while to believe him —everyone else apart from Jess and Dean just wants to be reassured that he's doing better, whatever that means— but eventually he figured out that Brady genuinely wants to know how he's doing, genuinely wants to help in whatever small way he can.

"It's okay. I still get dizzy a lot, but it doesn't hurt, much. Mostly it's just uncomfortable. Beds here aren't made for someone my height."

"You are freakishly tall," Brady agrees. "I thought for sure you were here on a basketball scholarship, but it turned out you were here because you're even smarter than you are tall."

"No team sports, then?"

"You told me you used to play soccer when you were a kid, and then you stopped, but you never said why."

"Oh. Maybe Dean'll know."

"Yeah, maybe."

Sam looks up from where he's been staring at his hands, resting in his lap, surprised by Brady's tone. His friend's expression hasn't changed, still blandly cheerful, but there's something there that Sam can't quite put his finger on, something that strikes him as not quite right. He's being paranoid, probably, he tells himself. The therapist said it was common to overcompensate by attributing hidden motives and feelings where there are none, because it helps him feel like he's getting a handle on things. So, yeah. Paranoid.

"So, when are you getting sprung from this joint?" Brady changes the topic, although Sam isn't sure he likes the new one any better. He tries not to fidget.

"Pretty soon. Maybe another couple of weeks, depending on how things go. If I stop getting dizzy all the time, for one. Everything's healing up just fine, but they're kind of concerned about my fine motor skills. Turns out they're important," he says wryly, trying not to sound as bitter as he feels about not being able to do something as basic as cutting up his own food without help. He twists his hands in his lap, staring at the thin hospital blanket.

"Right. How's that going?"

"You want the brave soldier answer or the frustrated trauma patient answer?"

Brady makes a sympathetic face. "I think you just gave me the answer anyway. If it's any consolation, you're taking this way better than I would, I think."

Sam just snorts. "How would you know? I'm not me anymore, so if our positions were reversed, you wouldn't be you, so how could you possibly know how you'd take it?" he bites his lip, dangerously close to tears again, and God, can he please just have one day without a meltdown?

"Woah," his friend leans forward, puts a hand carefully on his arm. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry. It came out all wrong, but I swear I was trying for light-hearted and encouraging."

"Shit," Sam rests his forehead in his hand, covering his eyes. "I'm a mess." He takes a couple of deep breaths, trying to keep himself from bawling like an infant, yet again. "Sorry. I don't —I feel like I should have a handle on this, but I don't."

Brady just squeezes his arm. "Sam. Dude. You're recovering from traumatic brain injury. No one but you expects you to 'have a handle' on anything. No one recovers the same way or at the same pace, and it's shitty and frustrating for everyone, especially the patient. That's you. So cut yourself some slack, okay?"

Sam sniffs, tears leaking from his eyes in spite of his best efforts, and he wipes at his cheeks with the back of one hand. "I don't want to get out of here and need Jess or Dean to feed me on top of everything else. It's bad enough..." he trails off, shrugs.

"No, I get it. Look, I know it's not much, but I'll be around too. If you want a break from Jess and Dean, you just let me know. I'm not saying they're bad for you, or anything like that," Brady holds up a hand before Sam can say anything. "It's just that they're the two closest people you've got, and, you know, sometimes just having them around puts extra pressure on you to live up to expectations. Not that they have expectations, but maybe you're telling yourself they do."

"And you don't?"

Brady shrugs. "You might not remember it, but you were there for me during the worst time of my life, and I remember just fine. You didn't ask questions, you didn't judge, nothing. You were my safety net for, like, a year, man, if not longer. If you hadn't been there... I'm pretty sure I would have finished self-destructing. As it is, I'm still here, and I owe you. Even if I didn't owe you, though, you're still my friend, and I want to be there for you in what ways I can."

"If your goal is to make me stop crying like a girl, you're failing," Sam manages a small grin.

"Nah, that's not it. This way I get to look manlier than you, so you're doing me a favour."

Sam huffs a laugh at that, feels his equilibrium returning, along with a rush of gratitude toward Brady for not making a big deal out of this. "You always like this?"

"Only when I'm not engaging in unspeakably depraved acts of evil."

"So long as you do that behind closed doors, I think we're fine."

Brady laughs. "You know, you may not realize it, but you're not that different now than you were before. I think —and this is by no means my medical opinion, for the record, just a feeling— that eventually you're going to get back to who you're meant to be."

Sam looks up, knows he must look pathetically hopeful. "You think so?"

"Yeah, I do. I think there's no escaping it."

**~SPN~SPN~SPN~**

The bar is pretty busy even on week nights, Dean discovers. The first night is a quasi-disaster, as he figures out how to handle multiple simultaneous orders, harassed wait staff, half-drunken women who insist on flirting with him when he doesn't want to be distracted, and impatient guys who are annoyed that their dates are flirting with him. It gets easier once he sorts out how the liquor is set up behind him: once he knows which bottles to grab without having to read all the labels, his job gets ten times easier. Not for the first time, he's grateful to his Dad for all the drilling he made him do, taking in his surroundings at a glance and then repeating what he saw, until it was practically second nature to know the layout of a given room, a clearing in a forest, a cave, anywhere. Applying the technique to the booze causes a bit of cognitive dissonance, but it works just as well.

The rest is easy after that. Harassed wait staff get a wink and an ass slap, or a clap on the shoulder if they're guys. The girls take it in stride, rolling their eyes and telling him that sexual harassment on the first day is going to get him fired, and the one guy who works during the week seems kind of awed by the fact Dean can get away with being handsy with the girls. Flirty drunken girls get a gentle nudge back toward their dates, unless they're single, in which case he usually gets a phone number that he'll likely use only once, if ever. No one night stands in the establishment you're working in seems like a pretty good rule, once Dean thinks it up. He's working four nights a week, Tuesday to Friday, and once he proves himself on the Thursday and Friday, Donna, his manager, hints that she'll probably let him work Saturdays too, if the need arises. Given that her current bartender, a skinny guy with scruffy brown hair who reminds Dean uncomfortably of Sam, has just graduated and is looking to be moving on by the end of the summer, he figures he's pretty much set.

By the time the first Friday rolls around, he's set up something that feels a little like a routine. Sleep until about ten, get in his morning run, then spend as much time as he can with Sam in between Sam's PT and his sessions with the hospital shrink. Jess comes by in the late afternoon or sometimes the early evening, once she's done with her job, and Dean usually heads directly to the bar, keeping his work clothes in a small bag in the Impala. It's only been a few days, but it feels surprisingly normal —and just the thought makes him kind of queasy, because Sam is the one who always wanted 'normal,' and now he's the only one not getting it.

He slips behind the counter, glad that Donna doesn't insist on his wearing anything but whatever shoes are comfortable. If he has to spend eight hours on his feet, he's definitely going to do it in footwear that won't leave him in agony by closing time. Even so, he keeps a stool behind the bar, and casually rests one knee on it when he has to, taking the pressure off his bad leg without it seeming too obvious. He wipes down the bar, sets himself up for the evening, and lets himself slide into the mindless thrum of taking orders, serving drinks, and making meaningless small talk with the first patrons coming in. By ten o'clock the place is packed with the regulars who've been pointed out to him as well as the college crowd, who only come out on weekends or during big events.

He's in the process of trying to pour an appletini while keeping a straight face —harder than it sounds, because, seriously, appletini?— when he comes face to face with Lauren over the bar. She's wearing a little black dress that hugs her ample curves in all the right places and then some, revealing very nice cleavage and legs that, while maybe on the short side, look like they could do some fantastic things, given the opportunity.

"Fancy meeting you here," she says, in a way that makes it obvious she came here to find him.

"Funny how that works. What can I get you?"

"Beer's good. Whatever you've got on tap. How you liking the job so far?"

He doesn't answer right away, slides her a glass and fills out a few more orders before turning back. "So far so good, I guess. It's not exactly my usual sort of gig."

"Right. The mysterious 'this-and-that' that Sam always refused to elaborate on."

She grins, letting him know she's not going to press him, for which he's grateful. He's still trying to figure out how to explain the whole 'hunting' thing to Sam, who in spite of being literally brain-damaged, is still smart enough to have figured out that there's a lot more to their family than meets the eye. So far he's managed to put it off, but only because he's promised Sam full disclosure once he's out of the hospital. At best, he's bought himself a few weeks. He realizes with a start that Lauren is still talking to him.

"So what time do you get off?"

He smirks. "My boss says I have to get off on my own time," he says, and she lets out a delighted giggle and leans across the bar to swat him on the arm.

"That was terrible!"

"I try."

"So, I'll see you at closing time?"

"I'll be here."

"Awesome," she finishes her beer, smiles suggestively at him, and he watches her saunter off with a slight wriggle to her hips that promises a really good time later, if he takes her up on it.

Right now, he can't think of a good reason not to.

**~SPN~SPN~SPN~**

Jess has never been much of a deep sleeper, and living with Sam for a year and a half or so exacerbated that. She hasn't told him or Dean, but this isn't exactly the first time Sam has had nightmares so bad they made him scream himself awake. He always said he didn't remember his dreams, but she never believed him: the look on his face belied his words. She didn't press him, tried very hard to respect his need for privacy, even though part of her couldn't help but be hurt by the fact that he apparently didn't trust her enough to confide in her. Afterward, he'd huddle back down on the bed, turning his back on her, until she'd pull him, shaking, back into her arms, and hold him until the trembling stopped and he drifted back to sleep.

She wakens to the sound of a key turning in the lock of the front door, the soft padding of footsteps in the hallway. The light coming in through the window still has a pale, sickly pre-dawn hue, and a glance at the clock tells her that while it's still ridiculously early in the morning, it's also a lot later than she was expecting Dean to be home. Not that she's his keeper, or anything, but she's not used to having a roommate rather than a boyfriend anymore, and the thought that he's probably been out with some girl is a bit disconcerting. She slides out of bed, ventures to the door of the bedroom, and catches him as he's about to slip into the bathroom.

"Late night?"

He starts, and manages to look a guilty, defiant and nonchalant all at the same time. "I guess, yeah. Did I wake you?"

She shrugs. "I'm a light sleeper." He smells of cigarettes and perfume and sex, although he's looking far too good for someone doing a good imitation of a walk of shame. She scowls a bit. "It's really unfair that you're completely unmussed after an all-nighter. What do you do, put on a layer of shellac before you go out?"

He grins, then huffs a laugh. "Just good genes. I'm, uh, gonna hit the shower. I may look fantastic, but trust me, you'll thank me later."

She nods. "Okay. I'll make coffee. You coming to the hospital, or going to bed?"

"Hospital," is the decisive answer. "I can catch a nap first. Donna doesn't want me in tonight, not until I've proved I can handle the crowds, so I can just hit the hay early."

"Okay. And, uh, thanks," she says, feeling even more awkward than she sounds.

"For what?"

She makes a face. "Not bringing whoever it was home."

He looks at her as though he's just stepped in something unpleasant. "I wouldn't do that."

"Yeah, I get that now. But I appreciate it, anyway."

"Whatever."

He ducks into the bathroom, and she realizes that she's managed to insult him, possibly even hurt his feelings. It's a needling reminder that, even though they've been living in each other's pockets for the better part of two months, she still knows next to nothing about him, about who he is, about what makes him tick. She rummages in the kitchen, still finding her way around her new surroundings after less than a week. She already likes this place better: it's larger, and the kitchen gives onto the back yard with a sliding glass door, which means that sunlight streams in almost all day long.

She's sitting down to a bowl of cereal and her first cup of coffee when Dean ventures back in the kitchen, hair still damp, fresh clothes clinging to him ever so slightly. He gives her a nod, helps himself to a cup of coffee, and drops a couple of slices of bread in the toaster. He smirks a bit at her corn flakes.

"I have to introduce you to Lucky Charms. Your cereal is seriously lacking in sugar and marshmallows."

She makes a face. "Yuck. No thank you."

"Is it the sugar or the marshmallows you object to?" he hooks his bad leg around a chair rung, pulls the chair under him and sits at the table, sipping gingerly at the steaming coffee.

"Marshmallows. I like mine burnt but not soggy." Meaningless small talk, again. She hasn't figured out a way to get him to talk about anything serious, unless it's directly related to Sam's care. Sam was always good at deflecting conversations about him, but Dean is in a different class altogether.

"So you're a s'mores girl. Good to know. Bet you were a Girl Guide when you were a kid."

She flushes, not even sure why she's embarrassed, but she gets the feeling that Sam and Dean never exactly got the opportunity to be Boy Scouts. "Guilty."

"Always hated camping."

Jess chooses to ignore the comment. "Any word from your father yet?"

It's a hot-button topic with Dean, and it's probably unfair of her to spring it on him when he hasn't slept at all, not to mention she's pretty sure he would have brought it up if the elusive John Winchester had deigned to return any of the dozens of messages his eldest son has been leaving. She doesn't know for sure, but she's pretty certain that Dean leaves daily updates when he can, that is to say when the voicemail of his father's cell phone isn't full. She meets his gaze, steels herself for the mix of anger and hurt and confusion in his eyes that only his father seems to be able to put there. After a moment he looks away, down at the table, and shakes his head.

"Number's been disconnected."

She blows out a breath, frustration bubbling just beneath the surface of her thoughts. "He disconnected his cell phone?" She can't keep the disbelief out of her tone, and Dean bristles.

"I didn't say that. I said the number's been disconnected. He probably didn't have a choice."

"He not in the habit of paying his cell phone bills?" she asks pointedly.

"It's not like that," Dean says calmly. "You don't know anything about him, so you don't get to judge, got it?"

She manages not to roll her eyes. "What am I supposed to think, Dean? It's been two months. His son almost died, and he hasn't bothered to so much as pick up the phone and call to see how Sam is doing. You've been making excuses for him from the start, and they're all starting to wear a little thin. I know there was bad blood between him and Sam, but I'm finding it really hard to wrap my mind around the idea that your father is going to hold that against him now, of all times. Most family wouldn't."

There's a flash of anger in his eyes when he looks at her this time, so intense that she sits back in her chair, feels her heart rate quicken in spite of herself. As quickly as it appeared it vanishes again, and he simply presses his lips together. She can see a pulse point fluttering in his throat, the fingers of his right hand pulling reflexively into a fist, and for the first time in two months she finds herself a little afraid of this stranger living in her home. When he speaks, his voice is quiet, his tone even, and danger drips from every syllable.

"We're not talking about this."

She nods, doesn't trust her voice enough to speak out loud. He swallows the last of his coffee, stands up.

"I'm going to catch some shut-eye. If I'm not up in an hour, wake me up?"

She nods again, doesn't watch as he brushes past her, heading toward his room, taking his secrets and his injured feelings with him. She pours herself a second cup of coffee, and takes it outside with her, letting the early August sun soak away the remnants of guilt and insecurity and fear that seem to cling to her. So much for trying to have any sort of meaningful conversation with Dean Winchester.

**~SPN~SPN~SPN~**


	7. Chapter 7

Hey hey! I got another chapter written, and this time stuff actually happens!

Oh, and, erm... *blushes madly* I may have, erm, written mild porn. *cough* Sorry. Uh, I dunno what happened there, but Dean kind of insisted, and we all know I can't say no to him. It's about as mild and non-explicit as the last time I wrote a scene like that, but, y'know, your mileage may vary.

It's in the third section (oh, who am I kidding, it's the _entire_ third section), so if you want to avoid the het and Mousme's lame attempt at sex, you can just skip it entirely. The gist of the scene is: _Dean uses sex to avoid thinking about more important things. The end._ With gratuitous Disney references, because I'm apparently twisted like that. *cough*

God.

*headdesk*

**~SPN~SPN~SPN~**

**Chapter 7**

"So you're sure he can come home?"

The word 'home' feels weird on Dean's tongue, even as he says it, just like any other civilian. Sure, he's been living in the same place for a couple of months, not the longest he's ever stayed put, even, but he's never actually called any of those places home. Just a succession of motel rooms, rental apartments, the occasional house or cabin in the woods. The closest he's got to an actual home is the Impala, and he'll never call his baby that because it's way too embarrassingly sappy and he'll end up renting The Notebook and eating ice cream if he's not careful.

Dr. Alvarez nods. She's actually pretty cool, which is more than Dean can say for most of the doctors he's met over the years in various hospital emergency rooms. For one, she doesn't have a God complex, and for two, she talks to Dean as though he's not a mentally retarded child, which is a plus in his books. She also doesn't talk to Sam as though he's a mentally retarded child, and that's her main selling point. She's a neurologist and normally she'd just be in for a consult and that's it, but somewhere along the way she stepped in to be Sammy's primary physician, maybe because most of his problems stem from having his head bashed in by a car. Dean's not about to look a gift horse in the mouth, though. Dr. Alvarez leans her elbows on the desk between them, looking him in the face as she speaks, another point in her favour.

"I think that we can stick to the current schedule without too many problems. I'm going to have Dr. Blaize conduct another evaluation on Thursday, just to be sure, but at this juncture I think that having Sam stay in the hospital any longer is going to end up doing more harm than good for his emotional state. His motor skills are improving steadily, enough that he shouldn't have too much trouble with basic everyday tasks, so there's no reason for him to be cooped up here any more than he has to be. Mainly I'm waiting for Dr. Blaize's okay to release him."

"You think she won't want him to go?" Dean resists the impulse to get up and pace, which has been growing stronger ever since he stepped foot in the office. He doesn't like the idea of Sam having to see the psychiatrist as often as he does, even if objectively he knows it's important and just as necessary for Sam's recovery. Sammy's been depressed ever since he came out of the coma, although he tries his best to put up a front when people are around now that he's doing better physically. At least now he doesn't go for days without talking the way he did before. Sure, some of that was because he was having trouble forming thoughts, but most of it was because he just couldn't bring himself to talk, and that frightened Dean more than he will ever admit out loud.

"No, I think she and I are on the same page. I just want to cross all my i's and dot all my t's before I sign off on the release forms. I don't have to tell you that treating your brother is a tricky process, and I don't want to focus on his physical problems to the detriment of his mental health. In many ways, it's his emotional well-being that's more important."

"I know that," Dean folds his arms across his chest, knowing he sounds defensive and unable to do a single thing about it. Dr. Alvarez awards him a surprisingly patient smile.

"I never said you didn't. I'm just belabouring the point. Also, I would like it if you and Jessica would attend some sessions with Dr. Blaize as well. You're going to be Sam's primary caregivers, and as much as you love Sam, it's going to be a very difficult adjustment for the both of you."

"We'll be fine," the words are out of his mouth before he can even think of biting his tongue, and he thinks he sees a small flicker of annoyance on her face.

"You'll be fine for a while, yes. Eventually, though, you're going to need help. Sam isn't the only victim, here, and the sooner you realize that, the better. It's not shameful in any way to not be perfectly fine, with everything that's going on. Your whole life changed practically overnight."

Dean snorts. It's not exactly the first time his life has changed overnight, and they coped just fine the last time, too. "Right. Okay. I'll talk to Jess, let her know what you said."

"All right. If you don't want to talk to Dr. Blaize, I can refer you to someone else, as well."

"Nah, it's fine. If she's good enough for Sammy, she's good enough for me." Dean twists the ring on the finger of his right hand, doesn't quite know where to let his gaze land that would be safe. She reaches out, lays a hand over his, has to stretch to reach all the way over her desk, and he manages not to flinch away from the uninvited contact. Hey, she's pretty hot, even if she's at least ten years older than he is, maybe more. You don't become a neurologist overnight, after all.

"Dean. I know you're feeling a great deal of pressure to hold it all together. You're not the only one who's been through something like this, and believe me when I tell you, it's too much for one person to shoulder it all. You can't help Sam if you refuse help for yourself."

God damn these people and their goddamn habit of using Sam against him. Dean resolves to spend more time practising his poker face in the mirror, because it's getting to be really annoying how everyone seems to be able to read him like an open book these days.

"Yeah, okay, fine."

Her smile turns ever-so-subtly triumphant. "Good. I'll schedule an appointment for you. Mondays are your day off, right?"

**~SPN~SPN~SPN~**

Sam is coming home in two days, and Jess thinks she might go crazy in the intervening forty-eight hours. She's been obsessively cleaning since Monday morning, and even she has to admit that she probably doesn't need to re-scrub the grout in the bathroom, but she doesn't know what else to do with herself while she's at home. So she escapes to work, and when she's not at work she sits with Sam in his hospital room, except that she's found that she's increasingly nervous around him as the date of his release approaches. It's ridiculous, and she kind of hates herself for it, because it's really not Sam's fault that the safe, ordinary routine of her life has become all screwed up. In the past, though, Sam is the one she would have turned to for support, to cry on his shoulder and rant at him about how unfair it all is. Only now she can't, because he's in worse shape than she is, and he's holding it together so much better than she is, at least when they're together, so the least she can do is paste on a smile and try to act encouraging.

"You want to go outside for a while?" she offers. She got off work early, and it's a beautiful August afternoon, not a cloud in the sky.

The corners of Sam's mouth quirk up into the uncertain smile that's become usual for him these days. It's not the bright, open, unabashedly happy smile that used to light up rooms, the one that used to greet her every day, but at least it's a smile, and she'll take what she can get.

"Yeah," he says softly. "It's pretty nice out. Uh... is it okay? I mean, do you have time?"

Her chest feels tight, because the Sam from four months ago would automatically have known that she always has time for him. "Of course I do. I wouldn't have offered otherwise. You up for it, then?"

He nods, reaches carefully for the button that will raise the bed. She busies herself bringing the wheelchair around so that she won't have to watch the painstaking way in which Sam has to do everything these days, the way he bites his lip and screws up his nose in concentration to perform the simple act of pushing a couple of buttons, hands shaking and jerking in spite of himself. By the time she's got the chair pushed back toward the bed he's managed to sit up, legs hanging over the side of the bed, a little awkward still because of the external fixator still attached to his right leg, hands gripping the side of the mattress.

Jess keeps her eyes trained on his face, even though the lacerations and the surgical cuts have healed into pink scars, bright against the pale skin of his leg. Every time she lets herself look, all she sees is Sam lying crumpled on the asphalt, his calf ripped open from the inside out, bone and blood glistening under the glare of the streetlight, and it makes her a little sick to her stomach.

"You ready?" she asks brightly, trying hard to mask the nausea that's making her stomach churn.

"Born ready," he answers, glancing up at her quickly through his bangs, exactly the way he used to, and for the hundredth time that day she has to remind herself that it's not what she thinks.

She stands in front of him and lets him wrap his arms around her neck the way the nurses and the physical therapists showed her. Then it's up, pivot, ease Sam into the chair, lock the leg support in place to keep his leg almost completely straight, and they're good to go. It's all deceptively easy, here, and it doesn't help her anxiety about bringing him home in the slightest. She eases the wheelchair down the hallway and into the elevator, careful not to jar his leg or any other part of him, for that matter.

There's a tiny outdoor park on the hospital grounds. It's more like a couple of benches, a few trees, and some lawn that's mostly been taken over by weeds, but at least it's a green space with shade. She stops by a bench under a tree.

"This good?"

"If it wasn't, would you consent to changing spots?"

"Uh..." she stiffens, unsure what to make of his tone, and he has the grace to look abashed.

"Sorry. I was kidding, mostly. Not that I think you wouldn't... God, I'm sorry."

She sighs, tucks her feet up under her on the bench. "Don't be sorry. I get it: you can't move anywhere without someone pushing or pulling at you, and I'd be going crazy too. So how about you don't apologize for what you can't control and I won't apologize for it either?"

He rubs at his temple awkwardly with one hand. "Yeah, okay."

"Headache?"

That gets her a grimace. "What else is new? It's okay for now." He shifts his weight in the chair —nothing in this hospital has been made to accommodate someone of his height, and that includes the wheelchairs— then looks at her, squinting a bit in the afternoon light. "Uh, I don't know how to ask this without it sounding weird and probably really insulting..."

"Okay," Jess folds her hands in her lap, and tries not to look as apprehensive as she feels. "Go ahead and ask, and I'll try very hard not to get my feelings hurt."

He rubs the back of his neck in a way that reminds her of Dean. "So, we were... before, I mean... I guess we probably slept together?"

She snorts with amusement at that. "Uh, yes. Definitely."

He can't meet her eyes. "It's... when, uh... I mean, on Friday, when I'm supposed to... shit, this is hard. God."

"Eloquent as always when it comes to matters of the heart," she rolls her eyes, swallows the lump in her throat. "Sam, it's okay. You can't be in a regular bed right now, anyway, so we've got a hospital bed for you at home. One that's long enough to accommodate you, for that matter. We'll be sharing a room, 'cause we can't afford an extra bedroom, and someone needs to be close by anyway, but we won't be, uh, sharing a bed. Not for the foreseeable future, anyway."

Sam nods, keeps his gaze trained to the side, and she can see tears starting to form in his eyes. "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault."

His voice breaks, and she can barely make out the quiet words, spoken to the armrest of his wheelchair rather than to her. "Then why does it feel as though it is?"

**~SPN~SPN~SPN~**

It's three o'clock in the morning. Sam is coming home in less than nine hours, and Dean can't face up to going back to the apartment where Jessica is either sleeping or maybe attacking the bookcases with another bottle of Pledge. So he's spent the past hour obsessively wiping down the tables, polishing the bar until he can see his face in the surface, wiping and sorting the bottles of alcohol behind the bar, and rubbing the mirror with a soft cloth until there's not a single smudge or fingerprint left on the entire surface.

When he runs out of things to clean and organize he finds Lauren waiting for him in the tiny hallway leading to the restrooms and shoves her up against the wall, letting one hand travel up the rather flattering green top she's been displaying all evening. Well, not so much the top as what it's barely been covering up, but he's not exactly picky about that. It's a nice top, he thinks distractedly, all soft and stretchy in just the right places, and he gets a kick out of the way she's squirming ever so slightly as his fingers come into contact with the scratchy lace of her bra. She's digging both hands into his biceps, clinging as though she might fall on her ass if she lets go, returning his kiss just as eagerly as he's giving it, tongue flickering wildly over his, pushing and yielding in equal measure. She breaks the kiss with a quiet moan, throwing back her head as his hand moves back down, finds its way under her frilly black skirt, and the top of her head hits the wall with a hollow thud.

"Uh, God," she breathes. "Where the fuck'd you learn that?"

He sucks on her neck, pauses long enough to answer. "You don't wanna know."

She whimpers, tries to thrust against his fingers, but the angle is all wrong, and the sounds coming from her throat are getting increasingly frustrated. Which, if you ask him, turn-on, but Dean thinks of himself as a gentleman of sorts: he's not the type to start something he can't finish. "Fuck, I don't care, just... oh God, like that. There. Oh God, like that, yes, God!" she grips his shoulders tighter, rocking on the balls of her feet, straining to keep up while he keeps sucking and biting at her neck, her collarbone, leaving a trail of purpling bruises with lips and teeth. She's all but fucking herself on his fingers, getting louder as _want_ and _need_ begin to supersede her initial desire for discretion. "Oh, fuck," she's leaning against the wall, letting him pin her, and he grins and twists his fingers until she's keening and whining and coming apart at the seams, shuddering against him as if it's the middle of January.

When her eyes open again, pupils still blown so wide it's a miracle she can see, she licks her lips, chest still heaving, sweat cooling on her skin. "My turn," she says, a bit breathlessly. "Or, you know, your turn, depending on how you look at it."

The next thing he knows she on her knees and yanking at his zipper, and, well, he's not exactly about to say no to that, even if he's supposed to be locking up, and maybe making sure there's no one left in the restroom stalls. And then there's the fact he should be heading home and to bed, because Sammy's coming home tomorrow and he should be getting ready for that and oh, _fuck_, her tongue is doing really awesome things and now is no longer the time to be thinking about his brother.

He reaches out blindly with one hand to brace himself against the wall, ends up with his back leaning against it, and this is quite possibly the most awesome role-reversal he's had in a very long while. Lauren isn't spectacularly talented at this, but she's making up for the lack of experience with a whole lot of enthusiasm, and she doesn't make a single sound of protest when he grabs the back of her head, fingers tangling in her hair. She just hums happily, kind like the dwarves in Snow White on their way to work, and _damn_ does he not need to be thinking of that right now, even if Snow White was kind of hot in an abstract, Disney way, and he'll bet that she could do some fucking awesome things with those blood-red lips... He gasps and jerks as Lauren adds a hand to whatever she's doing, and goddamn but it's really hard not to just push down on her head —he's at exactly the right angle— and do whatever he wants to her. Instead he pulls both hands away and braces himself against the wall, his right hand finding and gripping the door frame to one of the restrooms, knuckles turning white even as his fingers brush up against a hinge. Maybe he should take the doors in the apartment off their hinges, like that website suggested, to make it easier for Sam's wheelchair to go through, he thinks, until he's brought crashing back to the present by Lauren's teeth scraping over him and _God_ how is he even thinking about wheelchair access right now? He nearly bites his tongue in half a moment later, his vision flashing white, and it's all he can do not to sink bonelessly to the floor and let his eyes roll back into his head.

Lauren giggles at him, running her tongue over lips that are red and swollen and glistening even in the dim light. "You back with me? I thought I lost you there for a minute."

He manages a sheepish grin as he sorts himself out, clumsily zipping up his fly again. "You almost did."

"Maybe I ought to handcuff you to my bed, make sure you don't stray too far."

There's no mistaking the invitation there, and there's nothing he wants more than to take her back to her place and stretch her out over her bed until she screams his name like it's a synonym for 'God.' He hesitates, a thousand thoughts flickering through his mind, most of them along the lines of _but-Sam-is-coming-home-tomorrow,_ and she mistakes the pause for something else.

"Or, you know, there doesn't have to be handcuffs."

"No, no, that's not it," he says, decision made. "Just give me ten minutes to finish locking up?"

Lauren smooths her skirt over her thighs. "Ten minutes," she agrees. "But only ten, or I'm starting without you. I'll be waiting by the car," she says over her shoulder, heading toward the exit with an exaggerated swing of her hips.

He makes it outside in seven.

**~SPN~SPN~SPN~**

"So just how hungover are you?" Sam nudges Dean's elbow as they wait for Jess to finish up whatever it is she's talking about with Dr. Alvarez.

All the paperwork is signed and sealed, Sam is dressed in a pair of loose black cotton pants and a grey t-shirt that probably fit him before but now looks as though it's about two sizes too large. He's still pale, and the dark circles under his eyes haven't receded at all, but Dean figures that they might go away with a bit more sleep and a bit more sunshine, now that he won't be trapped in the hospital for most hours of the day.

"'M not hungover," he says carefully. "Just tired. Thursdays are a bitch at work. All those people eager to blow their paycheques."

"Dean, I'm an amnesiac, not an idiot. If you're not hungover, then you were at least up all night. You look like you went a round with a truck, and coming from me, that's saying something."

Dean flinches. "I swear, if you weren't already suffering from brain trauma, I'd kick your scrawny ass."

"Hit a nerve, did I?" Sam grins, but he's twisting his hands in his lap, and it only takes Dean a moment to realize that Sam is anxious, that he's probably a giant bundle of nerves and that this is his way of coping, of trying to hold it together long enough to just get out of here.

"Yeah, okay, maybe. But I'm not hungover. I just didn't get a lot of sleep last night, okay?"

"Find someone special?"

"Oh, she was _special_, all right," Dean leers at Sam, and is gratified when his little brother blushes a bit. "Did all sorts of special things with that mouth of hers."

"This special girl have a name?"

"Sammy, you should know a gentleman doesn't kiss and tell."

Sam snorts. "Are you telling me you're a gentleman?"

"Okay, Lauren."

Sam's face scrunches up. "That the plump girl who came by?"

"That'd be the one. And she's not so much plump as... lavishly endowed."

"Dean!"

"What?" he pastes on his best innocent expression, and is rewarded with a laugh from Sam.

"You're unbelievable."

"You're the one who asked."

"And I'm seriously starting to regret that."

Jess rescues Sam from what is turning into quite possibly the most awkward conversation since the last time they talked about Dad. She's got a manila folder under one arm, her hair pulled back into a pony tail, her face flushed attractively from the heat.

"Ready to blow this joint?"

"God, yes."

Sam returns the smile: it's genuine, bright and sunny, and Jess just about glows under the attention. Dean resolutely doesn't feel jealous in the slightest, gets to his feet and grabs the handles of the wheelchair. He cracks a joke about racing to the car, keeps up the same steady pace anyway, and after a couple of false starts, between the three of them they manage to get Sam settled in the back seat, broken leg stretched out while he leans against the door on the passenger side. The drive back to the apartment is silent, none of them knowing exactly what to say, and when Dean pulls up in front of the small building, he hears Sam's breath catch in his throat. He turns around in his seat.

"Okay, so there are a couple of stairs to negotiate first, but once we're clear of those the rest of the place is fine for the wheelchair. You up to the stairs if I help you?"

Sam bites his lower lip and gives the two concrete steps leading up to the front door the same dubious look he might give to someone suggesting he scale Mount Everest in his bare feet.

"Yeah, sure. No problem."

Jess' expression mirrors Sam's, though probably not for the same reasons, Dean thinks. She doesn't say a word, though, just grabs the folded wheelchair from the trunk of the Impala (and thank God for false bottoms, is all Dean can say), and carries it up the stairs, staggering a bit under its weight, leaving him to ease Sam out of the car.

"Ready Sammy? On three." This time, Dean reminds himself, it actually has to be on three, and not on a 'surprise' number. This isn't a dislocated shoulder being put back into place. "One, two, three," he pulls Sam to his feet, his brother's hands hooked around his neck.

He can feel Sam's ribs beneath his hands, fragile as a bird's, pushes the thought out of his mind and reaches for the forearm crutches propped against the side of the car. It takes a moment of awkward fumbling, but eventually Sam gets the cuffs around his arms, leans his weight tentatively on the crutches, as thought the ground might be less solid outside the hospital. He gives Dean a nod, takes one shuffling step, then another, finds a slow rhythm, and makes it across the pavement to the foot of the stairs, where he hesitates, chewing on his lip. Dean has been trying not to hover, but he drops his hand to the small of Sam's back, reassuring.

"You're doing great, dude. Don't worry, I got your back."

Sam glances at him, nods once as though confirming something to himself, braces the crutches as best he can, takes the first step, then the second. Sweat is beading along his hairline by the time he gets to the front door, as much from the stress as from the exertion, and when Dean catches him under the arms to help him back into the wheelchair that's just inside the door, he sags gratefully against him, clutching at Dean's arms for balance. Dean grins reassuringly at him, ruffles his hair, ignoring the yelp of protest, then turns the wheelchair around in the entrance so that Sam is facing the apartment.

"Welcome home, Sammy."


	8. Chapter 8

So I took a break from my challenges and wrote another chapter of RiD, just because. It's a bit of a slow chapter, but I'm choosing to think of it as a bridge to future excitement! :)

* * *

**Chapter 8**

It's a little trickier than Dean imagined to negotiate the wheelchair around the apartment, but he gets the hang of it after a few moments, steering carefully. Sam unlocks the leg rest, gingerly bending his leg at the knee to help with the manoeuvring, and Dean can see that even though he's putting a brave face on it, this morning's exertion is already taking its toll on him.

"Okay, quick tour. You up for that?"

"Yeah, I'd like that. Get my bearings a bit," Sam is looking around, his expression a mixture of curiosity and yearning, as though somehow just being around his old belongings, he might recall something, anything at all. He reaches out to brush his fingers against furniture as Dean wheels him into the living room, eyes bright, chewing on his lip, stares at the few photographs on the shelves, on the side tables. Photographs of him and Jess laughing under a tree, smiling in front of the main building at Stanford. The same faded photograph that Dean has in his own wallet, creased and a bit battered, taken in front of the house in Lawrence. Sam doesn't even blink at it.

"Okay. I'll push, Jess'll be the tour guide. We should have one of those microphones," Dean looks at Jess and forces a smile. She returns it weakly at first, then more brightly.

"Right. Kitchen first, because it's why I picked the place," she says, getting into the spirit of the game, and Dean nods approvingly over Sam's head at her.

Jess leads the way, chattering animatedly about the light and the space, and soon Sam's smile is less tentative, too. The only time it falters is when they get to the bedroom, and Dean can see him eyeing the hospital bed with very little enthusiasm, wedged against the wall nearest the door. The room itself is reasonably-sized, but together with the queen-sized bed (still a little too small for Sam, the way most of the world is made, but who can afford a king-sized bed these days?) and the dresser, it feels cramped and maybe a little claustrophobic. Dean certainly wouldn't blame Sam if he felt a little crowded in here, but it was the only arrangement that made sense.

It's not a big place, so the 'tour' only lasts a few minutes, but by the time they get to the garden Sam is leaning back in his chair, the corners of his mouth pinched. The original plan was to have lunch outside, but it's pretty obvious that whatever energy Sam had has run out. Jess glances at Dean when she's sure Sam isn't looking, and he gives her another nod, figuring they're on the same wavelength.

"Hey, Sammy," he leans over. "I think maybe you should give that bed we got a test drive, make sure it's comfortable and that you've got the hang of the controls. Sound good?"

"Yeah, okay," Sam's voice sounds strained. "It's stupid, being tired already..."

"It's not stupid," Jess assures him, crouching next to the chair and rubbing his wrist with her thumb. "It's a lot for your first day back."

Sam snorts softly. "Right."

"Hey," Dean nudges his shoulder. "Good to see you haven't forgotten the art of the bitch-face there, Sammy."

"What? I'm not!" Sam twists in his seat and glares, and Dean gives him his best shit-eating grin.

"Whatever you say, princess. I'm tempted to stick a pea under your mattress just to see how long it'll take you to notice."

Sam huffs, but it's mission accomplished as far as Dean's concerned, because he's no longer obsessing about whatever newest limitation has come to his notice. He already does way too much of that. Dean wheels the chair carefully back into the apartment and into the bedroom, watching his brother's face as best he can from his current angle, and not liking what he sees there.

"You want to take your pain meds before or after we get you settled?"

Sam shakes his head. "I'm okay for now."

Dean clucks his tongue. "Yeah, see, that wasn't one of the choices. You let the pain get too bad, then the pills won't work, and we'll end up having to use the nuke 'em from orbit stuff, and none of us wants that."

Sam makes an impatient noise at the back of his throat, but he lost the argument before it began. Dean hands him a glass of water, and drops two pills into the palm of his left hand. Sam doesn't meet his gaze as he puts the pills in his mouth and tries to lift the glass to his lips without spilling any of the water. The glass tilts a little too far, and Dean reaches out and holds it steady so he can drink, ignoring the embarrassed look on Sam's face which sometimes seems to reside there almost permanently.

"Thanks."

"No sweat," Dean is sure Sam doesn't mean to sound grudging —he's just frustrated and on the verge of exhaustion. "I've got the reflexes of a striking snake, and I almost never get to use 'em. You ready?"

"Sure."

The bed is adjustable, which is a freaking blessing. It means there's minimal fuss during the transfer from chair to bed, and it also means that eventually, when Sam is stronger, he'll be able to manage it on his own. Sam's hands clench on the bedsheets as he lies back, his face grey with pain, and Dean gently puts a hand on his chest, leans over him.

"C'mon, Sammy. Breathe through it. Easy does it. Count your breaths, okay? Just like the therapist showed you," he says softly. Sam doesn't answer, and for a minute or so his breathing stutters until he gets it under control and the painkillers start taking effect. Dean rubs his collarbone reassuringly with his thumb as Sam's eyes flutter closed. "Better?"

"Mm."

"Think you can get some sleep now?"

"'S what I do best."

"Attaboy. You need anything, you just yell, okay? We're not far."

"'kay." Sam's already mostly asleep.

Dean stays where he is for a moment, just watching his breathing even out further into sleep. When he looks up, he catches Jess leaning in the doorway, arms folded over her stomach, watching them both. She smiles, and for a split second he finds himself wishing he could wipe all the sadness away from an expression that should be reserved entirely for happiness.

"I'm going to make sandwiches," she says quietly, mindful not to disturb Sam. "You want one?"

"I'd love one. We got ham?"

Her smile broadens. "As a matter of fact, we do," she says, turning back toward the kitchen. "But I'm not cutting the crusts off your bread."

He chuckles. "Fair enough. I haven't needed that done since I was four, anyway."

He follows close on her heels, and it occurs to him that, after everything, this is probably the closest they're ever going to get to normal.

* * *

When Jess was ten years old, she broke her arm. It wasn't a bad break or anything, and ten-year-olds are resilient, but what she does remember apart from the fact that it was pretty cool to get all her friends to sign and decorate her cast, is that for about a week or so it messed up her sleep completely. Her arm hurt and kept her awake, and then she'd fall asleep during the day, and then she wouldn't be tired at night, perpetuating the vicious cycle. Bearing that in mind, she tells herself she shouldn't be surprised that Sam's sleeping patterns are all out of whack.

Sam has always been a light sleeper, occasionally restless and prone to insomnia during times of stress —although that proved to be something of a blessing in disguise during exam season— but it's a lot worse now. She lies awake, listening to him shift uncomfortably on his bed, debates whether or not to get up and see if he needs something. It's not unreasonable to assume that the painkillers have worn off by now, and he never likes taking the sleeping pills the therapist prescribed, not that she can blame him. A quiet sigh of pain from Sam's bed makes the decision a no-brainer. She slips out from under the bedclothes, unconsciously smoothing down her Smurf t-shirt, pads over to his bed.

"Sam?"

To her surprise, she finds he's still asleep, moving restlessly on the bed, fingers tugging at the sheets, mumbling under his breath. She can't make any of it out, but whatever he's dreaming about, it doesn't look pleasant. She bites her lip, torn between waking him up from his nightmare and leaving him be, because even nightmare-ridden sleep is better than no sleep at all, and there's no guarantee he'll be able to fall asleep again afterward. A moment later the decision is taken out of her hands when he comes awake with a jerk and a gasp.

"Hey," she says softly, trying not to startle him even more. "Bad dream?"

It takes a moment for him to focus on her. He's still breathing hard, sweat beading on his face. "Uh..." his eyes flick to her face, flick away again, uncertain, and she pats his arm. Disorientation is normal, she reminds herself. Even if he wasn't recovering from serious brain trauma, waking up from a nightmare is confusing enough.

"I'll get you some water and your pills. Hang tight, okay?" He doesn't answer, just stares anxiously into the darkness until she gets back, and lets her prop him up to swallow the meds. At least, she consoles herself, it feels like he's come down from whatever nightmare he was in before. "You okay?"

He nods. "'M okay. Sorry. I d-didn't mean to wake you." He's stuttering badly, something he only does when he's extremely overtired or stressed. She hasn't heard him do it in a while, and she tries to cover her worry with a smile.

"You didn't, I was already awake. You want to talk about it?"

This time he shakes his head. "J-just a nightmare. D-doesn't mean any-anything. Painkillers do a number on me."

"You been getting a lot of nightmares, then?"

"Uh..." he shifts, winces as he tries to sit up, and she reaches over to the controls to raise the bed. "I guess. I haven't really b-been keeping t-track. I d-don't know. What's a lot?"

She smooths the hair away from his forehead, watching his face. "I suppose it depends on your definition. Do you think you can get back to sleep?"

He chews on his lip, doesn't meet her eyes. "D-do you... would you stay? Here, I mean. I, uh, I d-don't..."

"Of course," she spares him having to finish whatever he's struggling to say. "You want me to sit with you?"

"P-please."

She lowers the rail on the bed and, on impulse, eases herself up gently and stretches out next to Sam. She can feel the tension radiating off him, but he smiles crookedly at her, reaches clumsily for her hand with his. She wraps her fingers around his, strokes the back of his hand with her thumb. There's a thin sheen of sweat on his face, and the lines around his mouth are still there.

"Are the pills helping yet?"

"A bit. I w-wish it w-wasn't like this," he says, face pinched in concentration. "I d-don't..." he hesitates, stumbling over his words. "I w-want to remember you. From b-before, I mean. I c-can see why I l-loved you. I... shit," he buries his face against her shoulder. "W-words."

"It's okay. You don't have to talk if it's hard. Not tonight."

His voice is muffled against the sleeve of her t-shirt. "I t-think I st-still love you. I d-don't remember, b-but I can f-feel it. J-Jess?"

_Please stop talking_, she thinks. She doesn't trust herself to talk, just rubs his arm. Her eyes are burning, and it's all she can do to keep her breathing even.

"Am I d-different?"

She swallows hard. "Not all that different."

He shifts uncomfortably next to her, tightens his hold, and she can feel him trembling. "I d-don't... I'm sorry." He's tense, fighting for his words —she's learned the tone by now. He's not finding what he wants to say.

"Sam... how bad is the pain? Be honest."

He pulls away. "I dunno. Seven, maybe."

"I'm going to get you some fentanyl, okay?"

"Okay," he sighs. He's quiet while she sorts through the meds that she keeps on the dresser, and when he speaks again it's so soft she can almost tell herself she imagined it. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

* * *

It's the worst awakening Sam can remember in a very long time. His head is throbbing and his whole body aches to varying degrees. For a moment he thinks he might not be able to open his eyes, let alone face the day at all. He blinks, feels his breath catch in his throat when he doesn't recognize his surroundings, heart hammering painfully against his ribs. The walls are beige here, instead of white and green, and blue curtains have been drawn back from the window, letting sunlight spill into the room.

This is home, he remembers, feeling his pulse begin to slow again. It's where home is supposed to be, anyway. He fumbles for the controls to raise the bed, his movements clumsy and uncoordinated. It's going to be a bad day, he thinks with something akin to resigned despair. His first real day back at home. The rail is down on the bed, and his wheelchair is parked next to the dresser where his meds have been lined up. It may as well be a thousand miles away. He props himself up on his elbows, takes a breath, shoves himself upright, shuts his eyes when the room rocks drunkenly. He should call Dean or Jess, he tells himself as he grips the side of the bed, just keeping his balance. He hasn't tried to move from the bed to his chair on his own here, and the room isn't designed the same way as the hospital.

Sam looks down at his legs, hanging off the side of the bed, toes barely brushing against the floor, at the external fixator still drilled into his leg, at the thick scars winding their way up his shin. Even to him the leg looks slightly off, or maybe it's just the knowledge that he needs to go through at least one, maybe two surgeries in order to get it back into proper working order. He can put weight on it, up to a point, but today it's not sounding like a good idea.

"Hey, Sammy, you're up!" Dean pokes his head around the door, sparing him the decision of whether to try to make it to the wheelchair on his own or to swallow his pride and call for help. "You want to come have some breakfast?"

Sam's mouth is dry, and his answer comes out a little more hoarse than he'd like. "Uh, sure. I'd like to g-get cleaned up first," he stumbles over a word, and feels his spirits sink even more. Definitely a bad day.

Dean doesn't so much as bat an eyelash, for which Sam is grateful. "No problem, kiddo," he brushes a hand over Sam's forehead. "How you feeling this morning? Jess said you kind of had a rough night."

He shakes his head. "Tired." There's so much more to it than that, but he can't muster the energy to find the right words, especially when he's not even sure he'll be able to get the words past his lips.

Dean just nods, though, and helps him up and into his wheelchair, letting Sam put as much weight on him as he can bear. He locks the leg rest in place, mindful not to jolt his little brother, then grabs a little plastic cup and carefully doles out all of Sam's morning meds, handing them to him with a cheeky smirk.

"Bottoms up," he watches as Sam carefully lifts the little plastic cup to his mouth, then holds out a glass of water. "I should get one of those plastic boxes with the days of the week on it. That way we'll be able to keep track of your meds better."

Sam makes a noncommittal gesture, the pills bitter on his tongue. He reaches for the glass, only to find that his hands are shaking too badly to hold it. Dean wraps a hand around his, helps him hold the glass steady enough to drink. The water goes a long way to making him feel more human, cool against his throat.

"I, uh... I should wash up."

Dean grins. "Good thing you realized it, because I wasn't looking forward to being the one to tell you just how rank you smell."

"Jerk," Sam huffs a laugh, stops when he sees his brother flinch. "Sorry."

Dean waves him off. "Nothing to be sorry for."

Sam squirms in his chair, feels his face heat up. "I, uh... I'm going to, uh, need some help," he lifts a hand to demonstrate how badly it's shaking. "I think Jess would be pissed if I accidentally slit my throat trying to shave."

His brother pulls his chair backward out of the bedroom without hesitation. "Got it covered, little brother. We got some stuff set up in the bathroom already, but basically it's going to be trial-and-error until we figure out a system that works," he pulls the chair into the bathroom, moves it into the corner.

For all Jess claims she picked out the apartment for the kitchen, Sam suspects that it was really for the bathroom, which is more than large enough to accommodate the wheelchair and two people at the same time. There's a plastic chair in the tub, along with hand rails drilled into the walls in the shower and next to the toilet, and he realizes with a pang that they must have installed all of it for his benefit. He can feel the meds kicking in already, muscles relaxing slowly.

"Ready?" Dean asks, then tugs his t-shirt over his head. "Lift your hips, Sammy," he pulls off Sam's boxers, carefully keeping his gaze above waist-level.

Thanks to months of being in a hospital, Sam has mostly become used to being stripped and bathed and poked and prodded without much regard for his dignity, but somehow, in the privacy of his own home, it feels a little different. For one thing, it's not a nurse performing the necessary duty, but his brother. Showering is a whole lot more complicated than in the hospital, but after a few false starts he manages well enough, and doesn't even get the external fixator wet. It feels even stranger to have Dean shave him, kneeling next to his chair next to the sink, working carefully, concentrated on his task. It feels far too intimate, and it takes all his self-control not to squirm or pull away, and in the end he closes his eyes, shielding himself from the intensity of the moment. When he's done, Dean presses a toothbrush into his hand.

"All yours. You good?"

He stares at the toothbrush for a moment, and wishes he had a memory of a time when the simple act of brushing his teeth wasn't a complex undertaking. Then he looks up, smiles, and lies through his teeth. "Yeah, I'm good."

* * *

Before it's even mid-morning, Sam is asleep on the sofa in the living room, for all intents and purposes dead to the world. His first morning back has been kind of stressful all around, despite their best efforts. For all he's tried to plan for every contingency, Dean realizes that he's kind of lacking in imagination when it comes to his brother's limitations, no matter how transient they might be. Sam's had a bad night, is pale and shaky, the circles under his eyes darker than usual. His movements are uncertain, jerky, and it's obvious after just a few minutes that he's in pain, no matter how brave a face he's trying to put on it. It results in more than a few frustrating moments for both of them while they figure out just how much help Sam needs cutting up his food or even getting around the apartment. There's enough room for the wheelchair, but it's difficult for Sam to manoeuvre it on his own. The crutches are easier, but tire him out almost immediately, and his grip isn't always sure enough to keep hold of them, meaning that Dean ends up hovering nearby a lot more than either of them would like.

In the end he settles Sam on the sofa with another dose of pills, finds himself wishing Sam would fight him on it a little more instead of looking so damned grateful to be off his feet again, face pinched with pain. They were told to expect this, to expect that the first little while was going to be hard, that there might be more breakthrough pain, as the doctors called it. Still, Dean found himself hoping that somehow Sam would be the exception to the rule, or whatever, and that he'd be even better once he was home. If he's really honest with himself, he was sort of hoping that being out of the hospital would magically spark something in Sam's mind, and that he'd remember everything and spare Dean the necessity of finding a way to explain the world which Sam worked so hard to leave behind.

Of course, nothing in his life is ever that simple. Sam still doesn't remember a damned thing, and in the morning he has to deal with a Jess who's red-eyed and almost entirely silent, wrapped in misery.

"He's asleep," she says, her voice hoarse. "He... I think it was a bad night. You should let him sleep." She doesn't say much more than that, just slips out the front door, disappears into the day. Promises to be back as soon as she can, leaving him to deal with the aftermath of whatever happened during the night that she can't bring herself to tell him about.

Dean lets himself fall into the armchair nearest the sofa, wishing it were late enough in the day for a drink. Sam isn't likely to wake up anytime soon, between the stress, the poor sleep and the narcotics, and Dean supposes he could use the extra time to figure out just how to explain the whole 'saving people, hunting things' aspect of their lives, because that's the one thing Sam keeps harping on about. He pulls his cell phone out of his pocket, checks it for a message he knows won't be there. Over three months, and Dad hasn't bothered with so much as a text message. He supposes he should be grateful that Sam doesn't remember Dad at all, that he hasn't asked much about him, that he doesn't have to deal with the smouldering anger that Sam used to harbour against Dad back when they were all still a family.

He toys with the phone in his hand, considers sending Dad a text message, scrolls idly through the list of contacts. Dad, Bobby, Sam. Except that Sam's cell phone is gone, crushed under the wheels of the car that took everything else from him as well. They haven't bothered to replace it yet, but maybe they should now that Sam's out of the hospital. He's going to need to call them, maybe, after his therapy appointments, which reminds Dean that he bought a calendar for that. He drums his fingers on his knee for a moment, then gets up stiffly, bad leg aching distantly.

"I'll be right outside, Sammy," he says, even though Sam can't hear him.

He finds the blank calendar —an AC/DC one he found on sale at WalMart— and a pen in the kitchen, retrieves his pack of cigarettes from his jacket pocket, and lets himself out the back door, leaving it open. He lights up a smoke, starts filling in the standing appointments he knows Sam has. It's going to be Labour Day in a week. Classes are going to start, and life is going to keep on going around them. He fills in the dates in September, flips to October and marks down those appointments too. He turns the page, finds himself staring at November, closes the calendar again, and lights another cigarette.


	9. Chapter 9

Okay, so this wasn't exactly planned. I was totally going to work on other things, and then I kind of had an idea that wouldn't let go, and so, umm, this happened instead. *shrugs* I have given up trying to understand how my own mind works.

**Chapter 9**

"So, Dean. How are you?"

Dr. Blaize reminds Dean uncomfortably of his mother. She's the same age that his mother would have been if she'd lived. Blonde, pretty, with a wide smile, she favours summer dresses with tasteful flower patterns, and keeps her hair in a neat braid. Her eyes are brown, which is a mercy. He leans back in his chair, crosses his bad leg over his good one to take the pressure off his ankle, folds his arms across his chest, and awards her the smile that, when he's lucky, practically melts the underpants off of willing women.

"I am just super, thank you for asking."

She smiles, shakes her head at him. "Do we need to have this conversation all over again?"

"The one in which you tell me that I'll only get as much out of these sessions as I put in? No, I got it the first time. Shouldn't you be writing this down?" He pitches his voice a little sarcastically. "'Patient is combative and resistant to therapy.'"

"Is that how you think of yourself?" she doesn't move from where she's sitting elbows on her desk, chin resting on her hands.

He blinks at her. "Why would I?"

"I won't insult you by repeating your question back at you, but maybe that's something you should think about, in your spare time." She ignores his derisive snort at the idea of spare time. "If you don't want to talk about you, how about we talk about Sam? How is he?"

Dean shrugs. "I dunno. He's... it's hard. I mean, it was okay after the first couple of days. You know, he had to adjust to the place, and all that. He still gets tired easily, but the pills are helping with the pain..." he chews on his lip, glances out the window at the blue September sky.

"And what about the rest?"

He makes a helpless gesture, unfolding his arms. "I can't tell! He's not the same. I mean, he is the same, and he's not, and that's the whole problem. I know him, you know? I raised that kid. He's Sammy, except that he doesn't remember being Sammy, and I can't... I used to put Sesame Street band-aids on his scrapes, and feed him soup when he was sick even when he insisted that I spell his name with the damned alphabet noodles before he'd eat it. Fuck! Sorry," he rubs a hand over his mouth.

"Nothing to be sorry for," Dr. Blaize says quietly. "It sounds like you still feel as though you should be able to fix this."

He stares out the window, tries not to scoff. "Yeah, except I'm fresh out of Sesame Street band-aids."

"So, explain to me why you, Dean Winchester, are supposed to do this all by yourself?"

"I always have."

"What about your parents?"

Fuck. He doesn't want to talk about his mother with this woman. "Mom died when Sam was a baby, and Dad was working."

"Mm-hmm. And now? Your brother has a team of doctors and his girlfriend as well as you. Do you think it's fair to either of you to think that you're alone in this?"

"I never said that."

She just nods, and for the first time she jots something down on her legal pad while he fidgets. The silence stretches on, but she seems content to wait.

"He's depressed," he blurts finally.

"Sam?"

He nods. "Classes are starting again tomorrow. He'd be starting his last year. Pre-law. Do you know how high he scored on his LSATs?"

"I do. It's very impressive."

Dean pushes himself out of his chair, paces to the window. "It's just not fair, you know? He worked so hard for this... to get out." He hopes she hasn't noticed his wince, shifts his weight to his good leg, leaning against the windowsill. "And now he can't."

"Did he say that?"

He shakes his head. "No. But he's not the same. I know it's stupid to say that. I know he's can't be the same, not when he doesn't remember anything, bit it's... it's different, you know? He was a happy kid, always smiling. Couldn't get him to shut up. He wasn't even all that much of an emo teenager, except with our Dad. Now he spends whole days without opening his mouth."

"It must be hard to see him like that."

"Fuck," he wipes a hand over his mouth again. "Sorry." Somehow it feels wrong to be swearing in front of her.

"You don't need to apologize, Dean. In here, you can say whatever you want. You're safe, and nothing you say will make it past those doors."

He snorts. "Safe," he mutters, glancing at the unsecured door and window. The only way this place would be safe would be with a few extra lines of salt.

Her pen scratches some more on the paper. "You don't think so?"

"No offense, but no."

She pauses, looks up at him, and he squirms under her gaze. Her expression is serious, now, brown eyes drilling into him as though she can see right past his skin through to his soul. "Where _do_ you feel safe, Dean?"

"There's no such thing."

"You think so?"

"I know so."

"Do you want to tell me why?"

He shakes his head. "You wouldn't understand."

"I'd like to. Why don't you explain it to me?"

Right. There's been quite enough of talk-about-Dean for one day, thank you very much. Dean pulls himself up, forces himself not to favour his leg. He jerks his head at the clock on her wall, smirks. "I think we're out of time for today. See you next week."

He shoves his hands in his jacket pockets, and lets himself out the door before she can call him back.

* * *

The start of classes isn't as busy a time as, say, after exams, but there's still a fair bit of work to be done even so. There are syllabi to prepare, course packets to assemble, notes to put together. It's Jess' second year as a TA, and by now she's figured out more than the basics of how to survive and get her own work done. Sam is out for the count, in a sleep that's more drug-induced than natural, but at least he's asleep. He's been withdrawn for days, unable to sit still or concentrate on anything, and he's snapped and apologized practically in the same breath so many times that she's stopped counting.

She cradles her head in her hands. She's already taken twice the recommended amount of Tylenol and the words are blurring on the page in front of her. It's been slightly less than a week since Sam's come home, and she supposes they're all adjusting as well as can be expected. They're going to have a barbecue on Labour Day, just like everything's completely normal. Sam always liked the idea of an annual barbecue, got excited about having a tradition all their own, as though it's the newest most exciting idea he'd ever had. Now, though, she's not sure any of them really want to have their friends over, force themselves to make small talk when all their friends are going to be talking about going back to class, about life carrying on. Dean doesn't want it any more than she does, but Sam's put a brave face on it, and she doesn't know how to uninvite everyone without making it seem even more of a failure on his part.

She hears the key turning in the lock as Dean lets himself in the front door, glances up from where she's spread her papers all over the sofa and starts to try to clear a space, but he waves her off, hangs up his jacket and disappears into the kitchen. There's a clinking of glass against glass, the sound of the refrigerator door opening and closing a couple of times, and when he comes back he's got a glass of whiskey in one hand and a bottle of Tylenol in the other, the bottle of Jack tucked under his arm. Jess didn't have to go in to work today, so he accepted to work a double today. The pay is good, the tips on Thursdays are even better, and they can use the money, but he looks exhausted, and he's limping more than she's ever seen him do before.

"How was it?" she asks mildly.

He sets down his drink, eases himself gingerly into the armchair he's essentially claimed as his own, and stretches out his bad leg with a grimace of pain. Dry-swallows more than the recommended dose of Tylenol.

"Enough to put me off civilian life forever."

"What?"

"Nothing. Never mind," he leans back in his chair, picks up his glass, closes his eyes. "Fuck. Remind me never to do that again —I probably won't survive another shift like that. We were short a waiter so I filled in part of the evening, and then some slutty chick in, like, six-inch heels got really wasted and kicked me."

Jess snorts. "Sorry, it's not funny," she apologizes as he opens his eyes to glare at her. "Why'd she kick you?"

"Not on purpose. She lost her balance on those stupid-ass shoes. Why do women even wear those?"

"I could subject you to a really long treatise about fashion in a male-dominated society, about how women have to endure countless hours of torture and insecurity in order to fit into some pre-ordained concept of female beauty entirely decided by the male gaze, but I'm guessing you wanted a more flippant answer than that," she grins at him, and he snorts, returns her smile.

"Jesus, I should've known better than to ask. How come you're up so late?"

She waves vaguely at her papers. "Getting a head start on the semester. Soon I'm going to be up to my ears in grading papers and writing my own, and then there's law school applications..." she trails off, looks back at the bedroom door, left half-open just in case Sam needs her. She should be talking about this with Sam, not this stranger with eyes that look like Sam's sitting in her living room.

He empties his glass, refills it. He doesn't ever drink at work, she knows, not even when the patrons insist on buying him a drink, and she doesn't remember seeing him ever have more than a couple of beers at a time. "Law school, huh?"

"Yeah..." she shrugs. "It's a year away, but I kind of have to think about it now."

"Where do you want to go?"

"I always wanted to go to Harvard. My scores are good enough, I think, and once I graduate I'll be able to pay back the exorbitant loans they'll probably want from me." Sam would have scored a full ride, she thinks. They could have gone together.

"What about Sam?" He sounds angry, and maybe he should be. She shouldn't be planning her future when Sam doesn't have a past, but anger boils up inside her anyway.

"What about Sam?" she repeats flatly.

"You just going to sail off to Harvard, then? Leave him here?"

"Do you really want to have this conversation now?" she feels her voice going cool, distant. Damn, she really is becoming her mother.

"I don't want to have this conversation at all, but it looks like we're having it anyway. Are you going to stick out the year, or are you going to pick up and leave before then? I just need to know, so I can plan for it."

"Oh, fuck you!" she's out of her seat, just barely remembers that Sam is sleeping in the next room, manages not to shout. "Where do you come off being such a self-righteous asshole? Where have you been for the past three years, huh? I don't remember you so much as calling, except for once, and you weren't there afterward. You didn't see how fucked-up Sam was after you hung up on him, and you weren't there to pick up the goddamned pieces. I've always been here for him, which is more than I can say for you!"

"He's the one who left!"

"No, asshole, your father kicked him out. I thought you were there, or weren't you listening?"

"It wasn't like that."

"Not the way he tells it. You broke his fucking heart, and, frankly, I'm glad he can't remember that now. At least now he thinks you've always cared about him." She stops, breathing hard, feels her heart trying to climb into her throat, and she'll be damned if she's going to cry in front of Dean Winchester. "Fuck this. I'm going for a walk. I'll take my cell, call me if there's anything."

It takes all her self-control not to slam the door on her way out.

* * *

It's Saturday by the time Dean figures out that he really, really hates having Jess be mad at him. Okay, he figures that part out pretty quickly, but it takes a little longer to figure out that he doesn't want her to keep being mad at him. Mostly he hates the fact that she might be right. Not entirely right, because she knows fuck-all about him or his family, but, well. Sam isn't an idiot, he's sensed the tension in the air, but apart from some questioning looks he hasn't said anything. Knowing Sam, he probably thinks it's his fault, and right there is another compelling reason to fix this. If he can fix it.

Sam is on the sofa —it's becoming his favourite spot in the apartment— a book lying face down in his lap. He's been trying to stay awake for the past half-hour, but it's a losing battle. Dean leans over him, pats his good knee, and forces a grin.

"Sammy, give it up. Take a nap already. The book'll still be here when you wake up."

Sam's eyes snap open again. "Feels like all I do is sleep," he complains drowsily. "Barely managed two pages all morning. Can't concentrate."

"It'll get better," he says, wonders just when he started saying platitudes like that as a matter of course. The old Sam would have mocked him mercilessly for it.

"Just take it a day at a time, huh?" Sam rouses a bit. "You should totally start jamming Eye of the Tiger, there. Give me a rousing speech about overcoming adversity, all that. Maybe get me one of those motivational posters for the bedroom," his eyes sparkle a bit, and Dean feels the knot in his chest ease a little bit. Maybe it's not just the old Sam who'd mock him.

"Shut up," he manages. "Take a nap. I'm going outside to talk to Jess. Yell if you need anything."

Sam's eyes are drifting shut already. "'Bout time you apologized."

"Hey! What makes you think it was my fault?"

"Tell me I'm wrong."

He sighs. "Bite me." But Sam's asleep and can't appreciate the finer points of his razor-sharp wit.

He slips out the back door, makes his way over to the table where Jess is sitting, takes the seat opposite hers. She doesn't look up from where she's staring at a law book that looks bigger than his head, cigarette dangling between two fingers. He doesn't think she's seeing what's on the page.

"Okay, so maybe I was kind of an asshole with you."

She does look up then, and fixes him with a stare. Takes a drag off her cigarette and blows the smoke to the side.

"Okay, a lot of an asshole. I'm sorry. I kind of get..." he twirls his hand in front of him. "I'm sorry, okay?"

She snorts. "Apology accepted. You need to work on your delivery, though. Next time, I expect chocolate."

He blows out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. "Dad didn't mean to throw him out, you know."

She takes another puff. "No?"

He shakes his head. "It was always like that, with them. As long as Sam was a teenager. Always going at it, and Sam never knew when to stop pushing."

"What about you?"

He shrugs. "I never pushed." He hesitates, drums his fingers on the table, then pulls his cigarettes from a pocket, lights one. "Look... what you said—"

She interrupts him. "I'm sorry too, okay? I was tired, I had a headache, you pushed all my buttons."

"No, that's not —I don't want an apology," he rubs the back of his neck. "You mentioned a phone call, and..."

"And you want to know what happened after."

He nods. "I know it's not fair to ask you, but I don't remember much about it."

She stares at her book for a moment, toys with her hair. "It feels weird, telling you about this when he can't tell you himself. I don't know if he'd even want you to know. Besides, he wouldn't tell me most of it. He was just really upset."

Dean finishes his cigarette, feels his stomach coil. He doesn't remember most of that night, although he does remember making the call, remembers needing to hear Sam's voice and fumbling with his cell phone, hanging onto it like a drowning man to a piece of driftwood. "I was pretty fucked up."

"Yeah, he said that. He was worried about you. I don't think I'd ever seen him that upset. I tried not to listen while he was talking to you, but..."

"I don't remember what I said."

"Then that makes two of you. But he said afterward you told him not to bother calling again."

"Shit," he lets his head drop. "I can't have meant it. I was all fucked up on morphine, I don't remember what I said."

She flips her book shut. "Is that when you hurt your leg?" He nods. "He would have come, you know, if you'd asked."

"I know. It wouldn't have been fair."

Jess tilts her head. "I don't get you. You uprooted your life for him. What makes you think it would have been too much to ask for him to come visit you in the hospital? We were on break, you know. Mid-semester. He could have come, and it wouldn't have cost him anything, and instead you told him never to call you again."

He doesn't know how to explain it to her. Can't begin to figure out how to recount the days spent waiting for his Dad to realize something was wrong and to come get him, drifting in and out of consciousness. Trying to get even one bar on his cell phone. Toward the end he found himself thinking giddily that Sam would figure it out —he always figures it out when Dean's in trouble— and then in the hospital when his cell phone started working again he was pissed that Sam wasn't there when all he wanted was just to talk to him. He can't tell her any of it, anyway, because it's supposed to be a construction accident. That's the newest fiction.

"I dunno. I was just mad at him. And really high."

"Yeah, I got that," she smiles wryly.

"I can't even apologize to him now."

She opens her mouth, but whatever she's about to say is forestalled by the sound of something smashing inside the apartment.

* * *

It seemed like a good idea at the time, is all Sam will be able to say in his own defense after this. Hindsight is always twenty-twenty, isn't that what they say? Dean's outside, just a stone's throw away, talking with Jess. Sam can see them talking quietly, is watching them for signs of... well, anything. They must have had a fight of some kind on Thursday, or maybe early Friday morning, because it's felt like he's living in the middle of a very precarious truce for the past twenty-four hours. His brother and his girlfriend have been very careful around each other, more guarded than usual, kind of like a couple not wanting to fight in front of the kids, and it makes him somewhat irrationally want to throw a tantrum.

Instead he pretends not to have noticed, but he's relieved when it becomes obvious Dean's going to try to patch things up. He settles back on the sofa, trying to find a comfortable position, but like everything else it's not exactly designed to accommodate him. He finds himself wishing that he'd drunk less milk as a kid, or whatever it is that made him grow so damned tall. After a few minutes of wriggling he drops the book he was holding on the floor by accident, and sighs to himself, rolling his eyes. Even napping is a chore, it seems.

Sam sits up, testing for dizziness, but for once he feels okay. His head still hurts —hence the desire for a nap— but he's not dizzy. On the whole, it's been a pretty good morning. He retrieves the book from the floor, and a moment later is really grateful that no one's around to hear his really undignified grunt of pain as he moves wrong trying to straighten up again.

"Fuck," he groans under his breath. So much for a good morning.

His head hurts more now, kind of a steady, low-grade throb. It's not so bad, but he can tell it's the kind that's going to get worse if he doesn't do anything about it. He looks back at the glass doors leading to the yard, sees Jess and Dean still talking. They probably think he's still asleep. Come on, he tells himself. It's, like, ten feet to the kitchen. Okay, maybe a bit more, but he's done this before, he can totally do it again. He picks up his crutches from where they're leaning against the sofa, pushes himself carefully to his feet. He's a lot stronger than he was even a week ago, absurdly proud that his arms don't shake anymore when he makes his way around on the crutches.

So far so good, he tells himself as the rubber tips hit the linoleum floor of the kitchen. He makes it all the way to the counter next to the sink, then leans there for a minute to catch his breath. He grins to himself: he's totally doing this, all by himself. Fuck, yeah. He unhooks one of the crutches from his right arm, braces himself against the counter, opens up the cupboard and pulls out a glass. He fills it up at the sink, then reaches for the small bottle of Vicodin, fumbles with the cap, and is even more pleased when he gets it open after the third try. Another couple of weeks, and he'll totally be able to open it in one shot, he tells himself sarcastically, popping the pills into his mouth and picking up the glass. He takes a sip of water, swallows, feels his fingers lose their grip, the glass slip-slide along his skin.

He lurches, tries to keep hold of the glass, feels himself falling toward the counter. The loose crutch clatters to the floor, the other preventing him from bringing up his arm to block his fall. He sees the glass shatter against the edge of the counter, a splash of red mingling with the spilled water, and the second crutch slides out from under him, leaving him flailing for balance. He feels his head collide with the counter as he goes down, lets himself slide against the cabinets to the floor amidst the shards of glass, dazed. Things go swimmy for a bit, and he blinks, trying to clear his vision enough to see the damage. It's a mess, he tells himself, and Dad is going to be so mad at him. His head hurts. He shuts his eyes again, until he feels a hand on his shoulder.

"Sam? Oh my God!" Dean is kneeling in front of him, smoothing his hair away from his forehead. "Did you hurt yourself? Sam!"

He looks at his hand, at the blood on the floor, swirling pink in the water. The broken glass is making pretty patterns there. "I didn't mean to make a mess, Dean. You won't tell Dad, will you?"

"What?"

"He's going to be so mad at me. I'm sorry I broke the glass, I didn't mean to. You know that, right? Please don't tell him, I'm sorry!"

Dean smooths a hand over his forehead again. "Okay, Sammy. I won't tell him, I promise. It's going to be fine, you hear me? It's going to be fine, I promise."


	10. Chapter 10

You can blame the procrastination fairy for this one. :)

* * *

**Chapter 10**

Jess has had enough of pacing in hospital waiting rooms to last her several lifetimes. She thinks Dean would be pacing too, if he could, but he's been overdoing it ever since Sam came home, and he's been limping badly for the past couple of days. Since his double shift at the bar, in fact. He's sitting on the edge of his chair, jouncing the knee of his good leg up and down, trying to downplay his jitteriness and failing miserably. She glances at him, glances away again almost immediately. She shouldn't be angry at him, she knows it, but all she wants to do is scream at him for leaving Sam alone when he should have been watching him. Sometimes it feels as though her entire life is unfair.

Dean bounces out of his seat, limps to the door. "What's taking so damned long?"

"I don't know. I've been here the whole time, same as you. It's not like I have secret mind-reading powers here."

"I didn't say that. Fuck," he leans against the door jamb, lets his head fall back with a thunk. "I shouldn't have left him. I thought he was asleep, and it was just a couple of minutes. Why didn't he fucking call?"

She shakes her head. There's nothing coming out of his mouth that she doesn't want to say too. "You should sit."

"I'm good here, thanks."

"I can tell you leg is killing you. You're not doing any of us any favours by screwing yourself up." He glares, doesn't move, and she shrugs. "Suit yourself. But you don't deserve to suffer just because Sam had an accident."

"Don't psychoanalyse me. I got therapy for that," he snaps, then passes a hand over his face. "Fuck, I'm sorry. Just..."

She flaps a hand at him. "Don't. It's fine. I'm trying not to be pissed at you for no good reason."

He straightens, looking out into the hallway. "Finally!"

Dr. Alvarez arrives a moment later, clipboard tucked under her arm. She gives them both a warm smile, and Jess feels something loosen in her chest. "Sorry to keep you waiting. Why don't the two of you come with me, and we'll have a chat?"

Jess hurries after her, close on Dean's heels. For all his leg is hurting, he can still move faster than she can when he wants to. Dr. Alvarez takes them to a small consulting room a bit further away, and motions for them to sit.

"So?" Dean blurts. "How is he? Is he okay? How bad is it?"

The doctor smiles at him again. "Take it easy, Dean. There's no cause to worry just yet. It looked worse than it was." She flips a few pages over on her clipboard, reading through her notes. "I want to keep Sam overnight, just for observation. We've stitched up his hand, and there shouldn't be any complications from that —just a small scar, if he's unlucky. He didn't fall hard, there was no damage to his leg or spine, so he's safe enough there. I just want to monitor his cognitive responses for twenty-four hours. He was mildly concussed when he was brought in, and he's still a little disorientated, which is normal. If he weren't already suffering from neurological trouble, I wouldn't even be keeping him overnight. It's just a precaution."

Dean nods, chewing on his lip, and Jess tries not to look at him when she poses her next question. "Uh... when we found him, he was... he said something about his Dad. Like he remembered something. Is... does he...?" she trails off, not knowing how to finish her question, afraid almost to ask it, to let herself hope.

Dr. Alvarez gives her a sympathetic look, pats her arm. "I'm sorry, but it's very rare that there's any kind of miraculous memory recovery in these cases. Sam is confused and, like I said, disorientated from the blow to his head. He did express concern about his father, but I don't think it's much more than a confused impression, a latent memory. Don't get me wrong," she adds. "It's a good sign. It means the memories aren't all gone, and I'm hopeful that as he gets stronger they'll start coming back more clearly. I just don't want you to get your hopes up about his immediate prognosis, okay?"

Jess swallows a lump in her throat, nods. "Right." She wishes she didn't sound so much like she's trying not to cry.

"So there's no permanent damage?" Dean's got his hand on her shoulder, and he squeezes it, though he doesn't seem to realize what he's doing. It feels reassuring, steady, even if she knows it's probably not intended that way. She focusses on the feeling of his fingers digging into the muscles of her shoulder, letting it ground her.

"I don't think so. Like I said, we'll be monitoring him closely overnight, just to be sure, but he seems just fine, considering. Why don't you go see for yourselves?"

Jess is out of her seat almost before the doctor can finish her sentence.

* * *

Sam always manages to look like a kid in his hospital bed, despite the fact that his feet practically hang off the end. He's hooked up to a single heart rate monitor, eyes closed, his newly-bandaged hand resting loosely on his chest. Dean's almost reluctant to touch him, as though he's afraid Sam might not wake up after all and the past two and a half months will have been some sort of weird half-nightmare and that his brother's still in a coma. He forces himself forward, puts a hand gently on Sam's shoulder.

"Hey, Sleeping Beauty. Prince Charming's here. Where's my kiss?"

Sam's eyes flutter open. "N-not my type," he murmurs, and Dean feels his smile widen.

"You scared us, bitch. What the hell were you thinking?"

"Seemed liked a g-good idea at the t-time," Sam's eyes are tracking past him, looking for something. "'s like, t-ten feet away. Thought I c-could do it. W-where's Jess?"

"I'm right here, sweetheart," Jess steps up next to Dean. "How're you feeling?"

"They g-gave me something. I threw up. A lot. So they gave me something. Hate throwing up. M-makes my head hurt," he complains weakly.

"That's the concussion, dumbass," Dean brushes a hand against Sam's cheek. "Next time, bro, you gotta call one of us before pulling kamikaze stunts in the kitchen, okay?"

"'kay. I th-thought I could do it. M-made it all the way to the c-counter. F-fucking stupid. You mad at me?" Dean finds himself staring into very worried hazel eyes, which he's never been able to resist even at the best of times.

"God, no. We're not mad. Just... okay, a little mad. But only because you scared us."

"'m sorry," Sam lets his eyes close again. "I f-feel sick."

Shit. This is bad. "You gonna hurl again, Sammy?"

Sam doesn't answer, but he's breathing hard, lips pressed together in a thin line. Dean exchanges a look with Jess, sees his own worry reflected back at him, and fishes an emesis basin from under the bed. He senses when Sam's breathing changes again, gets more desperate, hauls him upright so he can vomit into the little kidney-shaped bowl. There's nothing left to throw up except bile and saliva, but it doesn't stop Sam from dry-heaving convulsively, and when he's done he sags against Dean's chest with a muted whimper. Wordlessly Jess takes the basin away, and Dean rubs circles on Sam's back —just like when he was a little kid with stomach flu— feeling stupid and helpless and useless.

"Feel better?"

Sam shakes his head, but he doesn't pull away. "F-fuck no. This sucks."

Okay, maybe not exactly like a little kid. "You want some water?"

"I w-want to go home," comes the petulant answer, but Sam accepts the water anyway.

Dean sighs. "Yeah, I know buddy. Tomorrow. They're keeping you overnight, just to make sure you haven't addled your brain even more. Besides, it's not so bad here. You get all the good meds and they have cable. Plus, jell-o."

Sam huffs a laugh. "They've only g-got the g-green stuff. T-terrible."

"You always did hate green jell-o. You think you can lie back now?"

Sam nods, lets Dean ease him back onto the bed. "I b-broke a glass once, I think. It b-broke on the..." his forehead scrunches in concentration as he gropes for his word. "C-can't... I know the w-word, damn it!"

Dean can feel Jess' eyes boring into the back of his neck and moves aside a bit, enough to give her room. "It's okay, Sammy. Take your time."

"Fuck," Sam says under his breath. "At l-least I can st-still swear. 's f-fucking therapeutic," he manages a weak smile, but it doesn't reach his eyes. "I r-remember the glass. I b-broke it, and I w-was..." he shakes his head, frustration written on his face. "D-dad?"

"You remember Dad?"

"N-not exactly. I j-just... I th-thought he'd be mad. There was g-glass all over the..." he stops. "Damn it. I kn-know the word!" he grits his teeth, and Jess reaches out to grab his uninjured hand, laces her fingers with his, brushes her lips against his cheek almost chastely.

"Hey," she says softly. "It's not a race. The word isn't going to go away just because you can't find it right now. You know that, right?"

Sam catches his bottom lip in his teeth, and Dean can tell he's fighting back tears of frustration, probably pain too. Two steps forward, five fucking steps back. "I w-want to remember. Why's it so fucking hard?"

"Because life's really fucking unfair," Jess chokes, caught somewhere between laughing and crying, rests her cheek on his shoulder. "That's why."

To Dean's surprise, Sam reaches up with his bandaged hand and strokes her hair awkwardly. His breath hitches just a bit, but he keeps stroking, turns his head so he can look at her. That's when Dean realizes that she's crying in earnest now, barely making a sound, and she doesn't resist when Sam sits up, pulls her closer and wraps his arms around her. He looks over her head at Dean, gives him a sad smile.

"Give us a minute?"

Something clenches painfully in his chest, but he nods, backs away. He pauses at the door, looks back in time to see his little brother carefully wiping the tears away from his girlfriend's face with his thumb, and lean in to kiss her tenderly on her temple.

* * *

When Sam awakens again, there's a familiar figure sitting in the chair by his hospital bed, lanky legs crossed at the ankles, fingers laced behind his head, coffee cup at his feet. He sits up, smiles. "Brady, hey. What're you doing here?"

"Babysitting," Brady smirks. "Kidding. I haven't seen you in over a week, and it seemed like a good opportunity to lend a hand and see you at the same time. Your brother had to go to work, and Jess was about done in, so she's getting some shut-eye for a few hours. She'll be back in the morning, soon as she can."

Sam rubs at his eyes with the tips of his fingers, scans the room for a clock. "What time is it?"

"Just after one. You kind of slept the afternoon and evening away there. You need anything for pain?"

"No, I'm good," Sam flexes his fingers experimentally, testing the range of movement in his injured hand. It's pretty good, all things considered. "You didn't have to come. I'll probably just end up sleeping most of the time."

Brady tilts his head, purses his lips for a split second. "I know, but I wanted to. It's not like I had anything more pressing to do."

Sam huffs a laugh. "Brady, it's Saturday night. Sunday morning. Whatever. I'm sure there are plenty of better things —or people— you could be doing."

"Hey, don't sell yourself short. You are one good-looking guy. If you weren't one hundred percent straight with a really scary girlfriend, I would totally make a move on you."

"Right. Okay. I'll take it as a compliment, but seriously, let's never talk about that again, okay?"

"Same old Winchester. You're such a prude."

"Bite me," Sam just groans, lies back on his bed. "I think I screwed up the barbecue tomorrow."

"Yeah, that should be the least of your worries. How's your head?"

"Still fucked up. I kind of whacked it on a counter by accident, you know. But I'm not dizzy or in a ton of pain, and I'm not stuttering, so I'm counting it a win." He can hear the bitterness in his voice, can't bring himself to try to mask it.

"You had everyone pretty worried, there, you know. What were you thinking, exactly?"

"I was thinking the kitchen was ten feet away, and how hard could it be? I don't want to have to get Jess or Dean to fetch and carry for me all damned day when I can just do it for myself."

"Except that you can't, not yet," Brady points out. "You need to cut yourself some slack there, Winchester. You've been back home what, a week? No one expects you to get right back in the saddle."

Sam clenches his fists involuntarily, feels the stitches pulling in his right hand. "I know that! Come on, Brady, it was ten fucking feet! Jess is studying and working and Dean's pulling double-shifts and I can tell his damned leg is killing him, and... it was ten feet. I can't even walk ten fucking feet without it turning into a fucking disaster."

Brady gets up, then, and comes to perch on the side of his bed, claps a hand on his shoulder. "You're a lot more foul-mouthed than you used to be. It's an improvement, if you ask me. Look, Sam, I get it," he says, his tone gentle. "I saw how tired Jess is too, how badly Dean's limping. I'm not blind, and I know you're not either. I didn't come by because I thought you'd all need time to settle in, but... maybe you could use someone who's not as close sometimes, you know? I don't have classes on Wednesdays. I could stop by, we'd have coffee or whatever the hell it is you're allowed to drink these days, and give Jess and Dean a break without having you split your skull open on the linoleum. What do you think?"

Sam thinks that he might just burst into tears if Brady doesn't shut up. "You don't have to."

Brady rolls his eyes. "Would you shut up with that already? You're a broken record. I wouldn't offer if I didn't want to. You're a friend, and that's what friends do. It's not for you, anyway. Your brother and your girlfriend need time for themselves too. It's a caregiver thing: you learn about it in those psych classes they make med students take. Burnout happens all the time, especially at the beginning. They're trying to do everything and be everything for you and they're trying to adjust too, and it's hard for them. So, yeah, they deserve a break, and I think once a week is pretty reasonable."

It's hard to argue with Brady's logic, and if Sam's honest with himself he knows it's damned selfish of him to want Dean and Jess around all the time. They have lives and needs outside of taking care of him, especially when he's too fucking broken to even remember them properly. He nods. "Okay. I mean, you'll have to ask them. It's their lives, you know?"

"It's your life too."

"I know. Doesn't feel like it, sometimes. Like I'm living someone else's life," Sam stares at his hands, tracing the curve of his fingers with his eyes. He's not even sure why he's saying this, not now, especially not to Brady. Except that he can't say shit like this to Dean and Jess. It wouldn't be fair to lay yet another burden at their feet.

"Yeah?" Brady arches an eyebrow, and Sam shrugs.

"It's stupid. I just feel like I'm living Sam Winchester's life."

"You are Sam Winchester."

"Am I?"

Brady ruffles his hair, and it feels a bit like when Dean does it. "Yes, you are. Even if you don't remember it right now, you will. Eventually."

"You seem pretty sure of that," Sam's tired, all of a sudden, eyelids drooping. He can't remember a time when he wasn't tired. "How can you be so sure?"

"I don't know," Brady shrugs, keeps his hand on Sam's head, cards his fingers through Sam's hair, the motion soothing. "Let's just say I have a good feeling about you. You're not going to be stuck like this forever, you know. I think you're destined for much bigger things than living in limbo, waiting to get your life back."

He can't keep his eyes open. "I hope you're right. Hate this."

"Of course I'm right. If you could remember, you'd know I'm always right about these things. Get some sleep, Sam. You'll feel better in the morning. Promise."

* * *

Dean's asleep on the sofa when Sam manages to make his way out of the bedroom, twisted awkwardly, unconsciously keeping his weight off his bad leg even in sleep, one arm flung over his face. He's drooling a little, Sam's amused to note, jaw slack, his breathing not quite loud enough to qualify as snoring. Sam is a little surprised, although he's not sure why. He's pretty sure Dean isn't the type to take naps, which means he must be as exhausted as Sam feels these days, and that's saying something. It took most of the morning to get all the discharge papers signed and organized, and he doesn't think Dean got much sleep, if any, between the end of his shift and coming back to the hospital to get him out. Burning the candle at both ends, which strikes Sam as something his brother would do. It's a gut feeling, rather than any practical knowledge, but it's the best he can do for now. Carefully he negotiates the wheelchair around the coffee table, and shifts into the armchair, easing his leg up onto the footrest. He has a moment of giddy triumph that he managed it all without waking his brother, until one of the crutches comes loose from the back of the wheelchair and clatters to the floor. Dean starts, and Sam sighs.

"So much for being stealthy. Sorry, man."

Dean sits up, scrubbing at his face with one hand. "No worries. Didn't mean to fall asleep. You didn't come out here alone, did you?"

Sam rolls his eyes. "I used the wheelchair. Can't fall on my ass if I'm already sitting, can I? And you looked like you needed the rest. When's the last time you slept?"

"Hey, who's taking care of who, here?" Dean demands, but Sam can see the corners of his mouth twitching.

"It's kind of hard to tell. Umm," he gestures vaguely. "You're sorta drooling there, bro."

"Shit," Dean wipes his mouth with his sleeve. "That's classy."

"I think Brady's onto something. You can spend your day off napping, or whatever."

Dean stiffens a bit, though it's hard to say why. "Sure."

"It was just an idea," he says quickly, not sure how he transgressed but eager to fix it. Anxiety knots in his stomach, making him trip over his tongue. "It doesn't mean anything. I mean, you d-don't... I d-didn't mean—"

"Sam, chill," Dean holds up a hand. "Just give me a second to wake up, wouldja?"

"Sorry," he twists his hands in his lap, and Dean sighs, reaches over to pat his knee.

"Quit worrying."

"K-kind of hard to do that," he takes a breath, tries to steady himself. "There's a lot to worry about, you know?"

"Hey, I won't let anything bad happen to you, okay?"

He nods, keeps twisting his hands together, rubbing one thumb over the other. "You never did tell me about our Dad."

"I guess I didn't," Dean doesn't meet his gaze.

"Or about you, either," Sam presses him. "What's so secret about what you do that I couldn't even tell Jess about it? I asked her... she said I never talked about you at all. That she barely knew you even existed, that you never came to visit, never called. That I never called you."

Dean rubs a hand over his mouth, but doesn't say anything, so Sam keeps going.

"L-look, you're here now, right? So w-was it something I did? Before?"

"Christ, no!" Dean looks appalled. "You just... look, you and Dad had a fight about your going to Stanford, and you both said some really shitty things to each other and you were both too damned proud and stubborn to... I dunno. Do whatever so you could fix it."

"So where is he now?"

"I don't know."

Sam makes a frustrated noise. "Please stop stonewalling me. I'm n-not so goddamned fragile that I'll b-break if you tell me my Dad hates me, or whatever. Whatever it is, it can't be so awful."

"It's not that," Dean flaps a hand at him. "I'm just... we don't talk about this sort of thing with civilians. I can't figure out how to start explaining it to you now. You used to know all this, I don't even know what—" he huffs a breath, looks just as frustrated as Sam feels. "And part of me doesn't want to. You wanted to be normal, and..."

"And this is as close as I'm going to get?" Sam said wryly.

Dean has the grace to look abashed. "I didn't mean it like that."

"Whatever it is, it can't possibly be that bad. We're not part of a gang or the Klu Klux Klan, are we?"

Dean snorts. "No."

There's silence after that. Sam waits, watches emotions flicker across his brother's face, sometimes faster than he can even identify them. Sadness, anger, relief... it's dizzying. He waits for Dean to find his words —he can sympathize with how hard that must be, at least. Finally, when it's obvious Dean's not going to talk, he clears his throat.

"So I've b-been having nightmares."

His brother looks up, startled. "What?"

"Nightmares," he repeats patiently. "Bad dreams."

"I know what nightmares are, thanks. And I know you haven't been sleeping well."

"That's not my point. I mean... I've been having nightmares about stuff that... it doesn't feel like just dreams. And a lot of the time you're there, and I think our Dad is too. I mean, it looks like him, the guy in that photograph, except that he's older. Sometimes he's older, anyway."

He looks up to find Dean staring at him as though he's trying to see right past his skull into his mind. He drops his gaze, keeps talking before he chickens out, because it's obvious Dean isn't going to come clean unless he does first. "So, you know, I've kind of been wondering about that. I d-don't... I don't remember things about my life, but I know things, you know? Like I remember the LSAT questions. I remember the story of Moby Dick, even though I don't remember when I read it. I remember stupid details about law and about Kant and Hegel and other things I probably learned in an intro to philosophy class. And... I know other things, too, and they make sense, even though they shouldn't. Like that spirits can't cross a line of salt. You kill a werewolf with a silver bullet to the heart. Vampires don't exist, but demons do."

Dean has all but stopped breathing, tension radiating off him, poised where he's sitting as though he's going to bolt at any moment. "Sam..."

He feels surprisingly calm. "I haven't told Jess. Not about this, not about the dreams, because it's crazy, right? It's completely crazy. So I was hoping maybe you could explain it to me."


	11. Chapter 11

So I'm really sorry it took me this long to get to this fic. Mea culpa! I am going to try to be better about updating it, probably about once a week on Wednesdays. If I can manage more, then that's great, but at least with a once a week schedule I'll know I can stay on top of it until the story's done.

Thanks for being so patient with me, dear readers!

* * *

**Chapter 11**

Dean doesn't remember a time when he hasn't known about the supernatural. He has dim memories of his mother, of a woman with blond hair and a soft voice, of playing with match box cars on the living room floor while the scent of baking wafted through the house. After that, though, his life has been nothing but fire and salt and the smell of cordite. Travelling with Dad and Sammy in the Impala, the feel of leather against his skin, the reassuring weight of his .45 in his hand. The knowledge that his Bowie knife is always within reach. He's been hunting since he was twelve, and salting his doorstep and windowsills since he was six. He learned the hard way that the world isn't a safe place, and he often pities the poor civilians he's met over the years, because they have no fucking idea of what's been creeping around in the shadows and living inside their walls. Nowhere is safe, but there are precious few people who know it.

He's listened to his Dad explain it to others, in varying degrees of detail depending on how bad it was and how much Dad thought they needed to know in order to get rid of whatever was going wrong in their lives. He's given the speech more than a few times himself, over the years. He remembers the first time he did it, sitting in the overly-flowery living room of a middle-aged woman who'd nearly had her skull split open by a poltergeist who'd taken to hurling furniture around. She'd sat there and cried quietly, her face pale and blotchy from the tears, because the thing had crushed her cat under a chest of drawers, and Dean hadn't known what to say or what to do, other than 'I'm sorry,' which seemed kind of pathetic. He wanted to tell her she was lucky that it was just her stupid old cat and not her, or someone she loved, felt anger simmering just below the surface because if he'd had a cat when he was four he would have traded it a million times over for his mother. Human trumps cat, the math was simple. Then she'd looked up at him, and he'd seen the same look in her eyes that he saw in the mirror every morning.

"I'm all alone now," she'd said, and he'd swallowed a sudden lump in his throat, and fled her house as fast as he could manage without actually being rude.

He's explained this to more people than he can count on the fingers of one hand, but now? Now he's tongue-tied, staring at his hands, at the cheap silver-plated ring on his right hand. It feels like he's been waiting for hours, days, searching for his words, but it's probably only been a few minutes.

"Okay," Sam says softly, breaking the silence. "How about I ask questions, and you fill in the blanks?"

Dean rubs a hand over his mouth. Sam shouldn't be the one taking care of him, shouldn't be reaching out with a kind smile and a patient tone. Sam whose leg is still encased in metal, who still can't get through an entire day without a nap and a fistful of painkillers, who loses words and whole sentences and who still doesn't actually remember any of his life. Sam puts a hand on his knee, and just the simple touch grounds him. He takes a breath, nods.

"Okay."

It's halting at first, Sam just as nervous as he is, maybe moreso. The questions are a little haphazard, out of order, as though Sam doesn't even know where to start. Then again, Dean doesn't know where to start either. Slowly, though, it all starts coming together, and Dean finds himself desperately wishing for a drink as he watches Sam re-learn everything there is to know about their family. The fire. Mom's death. The hunt for the thing that killed her. The countless other hunts that followed, the years of it being nothing but the three of them against the world.

"We never found it?" Sam's eyes have gone wide, his face pinched, drained of all colour. "The thing that killed our mother?"

Dean shakes his head. "Never. Not so much as a sliver of evidence, not for, God, twenty-two years. Twenty-one and change, really."

"What was it?"

Dean shrugs. "Dunno. Maybe Dad knows, but if he does he never said."

"Why not?"

"He's trying to keep us safe."

"By keeping us in the dark?" Sam's expression goes dark, and for a minute it's four years ago all over again, and Sam and Dad have just finished yet another argument with Dad leaving, slamming of the front door and the tires of his brand-new truck squealing against the asphalt as he goes off in search of the nearest bar.

"I don't think he even knows, Sammy."

Sam pulls away, rubs at his temples with his fingers. "God, it's stupid. I'm angry at a guy I don't even know," he mutters, and Dean's chest constricts. "I wish... I dunno, I wish he'd call, or something. It's all crazy, and I believe all of it. I just wish there was someone else who could tell me I'm not as crazy as I think I am."

"You're not crazy."

Sam huffs a laugh, lets his head drop. "You're my brother, Dean. I think it's part of the job description to tell me that."

"How's your head?" Dean knows he's deflecting, can't help it. "You want something?"

"It hurts," Sam confesses, "and I think I want to sleep for a year, if I can ever close my eyes again. What the hell am I supposed to tell Jess? What the hell did I tell her for two years when I actually knew all of this stuff?"

"I don't know."

"That's not much help," Sam says drily.

It's meant to be a joke, and Dean knows it, but it doesn't change anything. He almost bounces off the sofa, paces to the other end of the living room, and doesn't let himself feel guilty about the way he startles his brother. "Fuck, Sam, what do you want me to say? I wasn't here! You made it pretty fucking obvious you didn't want me around, so I steered clear. I can't tell you what you did because I wasn't fucking around to see it!"

Sam slumps in his chair. "I didn't mean it like that," he says softly.

And just like that, it's too much. He can practically feel the walls closing in on him, and he barely remembers to grab his cell phone on his way out the door, deaf to Sam's entreaties. The door slams shut behind him, and he lets himself walk out into the crisp autumn air.

Jess finds Sam sitting by himself on the sofa in the living room when she gets back, broken leg stretched out, heel resting on the carpeted floor next to the coffee table. His wheelchair is sitting a few feet away, looking weirdly empty, the way it always does when he's not in it, like some sort of ugly piece of abstract art. Sam looks wrecked, red-eyed and hollow-cheeked, worse even than when they brought him back from the hospital this morning, and he's got his head cradled in both hands.

"Sam?"

He jerks a bit, winces, and looks up. "Uh, hey," he manages a sheepish smile, but it's strained. "I know you just walked in, but... would you mind getting me the bottle of painkillers from the kitchen? I'm kind of about to lose my mind, here."

"Of course," she clamps down on the worry that threatens to come over her like a tidal wave. She'll deal with that in a minute, she tells herself. She drops her purse and keys, kicks off her shoes, and goes to fetch a glass of water and the damned bottle of Vicodin that seems to be at the root of all their problems this weekend. She comes back and sits next to him on the sofa, and wraps her hand around his when she sees he's shaking too badly to hold the glass steady.

"You sure you don't want one of the patches?"

"I'm sure."

"Where's Dean?" It has to be asked.

"I, uh... he went for a walk, I think," Sam's face is still screwed up with pain, but there's an odd hitch to his voice. She smooths his hair away from his forehead.

"What's wrong?"

Sam swallows, reaches up with a shaking hand to scrub at his eyes. "Nothing, I'm sorry."

"Sam... tell me. Why did Dean leave you alone?" she strokes his head, swears to herself that Dean will have to give a damned good reason for leaving Sam by himself and in pain for her not to do something really terrible to him.

"It's not his fault," Sam relaxes into her touch. "I upset him. Said some shitty things because I was upset and I took it out on him."

"You don't have to defend him. C'mere," she tugs them both back onto the sofa, and he curls into her, almost like he used to do before. "What did you fight about?"

He shrugs. "It wasn't a fight, exactly. Not until the end. He told me about our family, what we did before... before I left for Stanford. And then I was stupid and said something about his not being here, or whatever, and he got mad. I didn't mean it, not like he took it. I just... fuck, I don't know, Jess. I can't even tell him he's wrong, because I don't remember, but I feel like he's wrong, you know? I can't believe I would just tell him to stay away."

She sighs, burning with curiosity and knowing she's unlikely to get any real answers for now to questions she's had for two years. "For what it's worth, that's not what you told me, back then. I think you thought they wanted you to stay away, and they thought you didn't want them."

"God, three years."

She knows exactly what he means. What a waste. "I know. But you've got Dean back now. Or you might have him back if I don't kill him first for leaving you by yourself today."

"It wasn't that long. And he took his phone."

"Seriously, quit trying to defend him."

"I'm sorry," his hand has drifted up to her neck, finger tracing along the line of her collarbone, the way he used to do, and she feels goosebumps break out all over her body, can't quite repress the shiver that runs through her under his touch. He's relaxing slowly under the effects of the painkillers, his face smoothing out. "I think I was a pretty shitty boyfriend before, too. So, you know, sorry about that too."

She laughs at that. "What, for treating me like a queen and buying me chocolate and telling me my cookies were the best you ever had in your entire life? Or maybe it was for loving me so much you wanted to marry me?"

She half-regrets the words as they leave her mouth, but he doesn't flinch, doesn't even go a little stiff the way he usually does whenever the subject of their aborted engagement comes up. Instead he lets his fingers graze her neck, then carefully tilts her head toward him and brushes his lips against hers. For a moment she's too astonished to react, just lets him kiss her, and he pulls away.

"I'm sorry," he's apologizing again, and she never wants to hear the words come out of his mouth again. "I shouldn't—"

"No, Sam," she catches his hand in hers, laces their fingers together, searches out his eyes with hers. "It's okay."

"You don't... are you sure?" his eyes are wide, anxious, but she can see something else there, too. Desire, and an expression that's so close to the one she used to catch him with before, waking up in the morning to him lying beside her in their bed, propped up on one elbow, just watching her. She bites her lip, nods. "I know it's weird, but... I do love you," he says, voice hoarse.

She's not going to cry. Not now. "I love you too."

This time, she kisses him first, letting her eyes close, and enjoying the familiar feel of his hands rediscovering her body, the soft insistence of his tongue against hers, the sweetness of his breath. Neither of them notice when Dean steals quietly back into the apartment and edges silently into his room.

"So how's Sam?" Lauren asks, lacing her fingers behind her head on the pillow.

The great thing about Lauren, apart from the fact that she's a really fantastic lay, is that she's just about the only woman he's ever met who doesn't object to his smoking in bed. Sometimes she'll even take a drag off his cigarette, and that usually leads to a second go-round, but right now they're both still spent and sweaty, and he's enjoying watching the way her breasts move up and down with each breath.

"You're seriously asking about my kid brother right now?" he's a little annoyed, because the whole reason he's here —apart from the fantastic sex— is precisely so that he won't have to think about Sam, or the fact that Sam is starting to recover just fine and probably won't really need him around after a while. And maybe also the fact that he's seriously starting to feel like a third wheel who's really good at doing the dishes. Lauren has her own place, sans roommates, which is also a nice bonus, and a bed big enough to fit them both without getting cramped, which is more than he can say for his bunk at Sam and Jess' place. He's just grateful Lauren isn't the type to buy pink sheets.

She laughs a bit. "When else am I supposed to ask? It's not like we ever see each other except for sex. Would you have liked me to ask while I was still riding you, hot-shot?" she turns over onto her stomach, traces a fingernail along his hip, and he shudders a bit.

"Fuck no. Okay, you made your point. You could always call and ask, you know. He could even answer you himself."

"I guess, but it's a little weird. Besides, this way you talk to me about something more than how fucking awesome I am in bed. Which I'm not complaining about, but sometimes a girl likes some conversation, you know?"

He sits up a bit, tugging on the sheet. He's not exactly modest by any stretch of the imagination, but it's never been his habit to just sit there buck-naked after showing a girl a good time. Actually, this is probably the first girl since Cassie that he's stuck around for afterward. Generally he either hits the shower or the road pretty much right away. Cassie was a cuddler, but Lauren is anything but. In fact, he can't figure out what she wants out of him, and it freaks him the hell out whenever he lets himself think about it too long.

"You never answered my question. How is he? Brady said he took a fall last weekend and hit his head. Is he okay?"

Dean takes a drag off his cigarette, blows the smoke off to the side. "Oh, yeah. Scared the crap out of us, but he's a tough little shit. Well, not so little anymore. He's got a hard head. Didn't addle his brains —not any more than they already are, anyway. What?" he asks, as she snorts with laughter.

"Oh my God, you are so transparent," she jabs him in the ribs. "All this tough guy I'm-totally-blase-and-in-control act. You're not fooling anyone, you know. Do Sam and Jess know what a giant softball marshmallow you are?"

"Shut up," he rolls his eyes, smiles around his cigarette. "No they don't, and I will thank you not to go spreading such vicious lies about me."

"Lies, huh? Like that's the worst gossip I could come up with," she reaches out, plucks the cigarette from his hand with her thumb and forefinger, takes a puff, then pulls him in for a kiss, breathing the smoke back into his mouth, stubbing the cigarette out in the ash tray by her bed. It's hotter than it has any right to be, and in spite of himself he feels heat coiling in his abdomen, a flicker of renewed interest. "I could tell them you're several inches shorter than you really are, you know."

He chokes a bit, coughs out his mouthful of smoke. "You wouldn't."

"How would you know?" she points out reasonably, shifting in order to sit on his thighs, one hand drifting perilously close to making him completely lose track of the conversation. "It's not like you have any idea what I'm like outside of bed."

"I, uh, like to think I'm a pretty good judge of character," he manages an approximation of an appreciative leer, eyes raking up and down her body, and he reaches up to fondle one of her breasts. It's a little soon for a second go-round, but apparently his dick didn't get that memo, and she laughs at him.

"You're really cute when you're flustered," she says, and then her hand is on him, stroking and pulling, the contact just barely enough to keep him going. "Just like Sam. You stammer just the same way. Not that I ever managed to get him to do anything like this. He's a one-woman man, your brother, like a golden retriever."

And that's the whole problem right there, isn't it? "Can we please not talk about Sam while, uh, while you're doing that?" the request comes out a little strangled, because damn if she isn't about to make his brain leak right out through his ears, the movement all stroke-pull-twist, and he lets his head thunk back against the headboard, trying not to lose what little self-control he's got left.

"Are you sure?" she keeps up the motion, leans forward so that he can feel the heat from her body against his, murmurs into his ear. "Because I get the feeling that as long as I keep doing this that I can talk about anything I want to. How's that for kinky? I can keep asking after your baby brother, and you're going to let me."

"Jesus!"

"Your leg okay?" her tone shifts subtly away from the mocking, teasing note she had a moment ago.

"It's fine... fuck!"

"You sure? We could stop..." she breathes, chuckling, and that's enough. He pushes against her, flips her over onto her back, enjoying the giggle that escapes her lips. "Or not."

And with that, he sets about very determinedly to making her forget that she ever brought Sam up at all.

Jess is up to her ears in the first papers of the term. They're all five-page opinion pieces, but she's starting to think that maybe freshmen shouldn't be allowed to have opinions, ever again. For one thing, she thinks nastily as she scrawls another note in a margin, opinions ought at least to be researched and properly documented. Sometimes she wonders how these idiots ever graduated high school, let alone got into Stanford.

It doesn't help, of course, that she can't really focus on her work. Her thoughts keep drifting back to Sam, who wasn't even awake when she left this morning. She didn't try to wake him —he's not sleeping well or enough these days, kept up either with pain or nightmares or both— but she's starting to regret that now. Dean's been quiet since their last emergency visit to the hospital, or more likely since his disastrous conversation with Sam about what it is exactly that their family does.

"I want to tell you," Sam had said to her, "but I have to figure out some stuff first. It's not just about me. But I will, I promise."

He'd kissed her, then and it hadn't seemed like such a big deal, but now all she can think is that it's been two years of secrets and that nothing much has changed, even now that everything's different. It's so easy to let herself believe that Sam's still the shy, sweet guy she fell for, but every now and then he'll do or say something that brings home just how much the accident has really changed him. He doesn't remember any of their inside jokes, and some of the tiny gestures that used to mean so much to her appear to be little more than muscle memory. He still has some of the same tics and nervous habits as before, still has the same smile, but all it does is emphasize just how different things are, and sometimes she just wants to scream and hit something.

There's a knock at the door. "Am I interrupting?" Brady's slouched in the doorway, leaning against the frame, grinning lazily. As usual, he's dressed in casually elegant clothes than also manage to look as though he's spent the night in them. He probably has, she thinks with something that feels oddly like disappointment.

She waves a hand at him. "Yes, but at this point I welcome any and all interruptions. Shouldn't you be in class?"

He shrugs, drapes himself languidly in the chair normally reserved for students, and hooks a knee over one arm of the chair. "Class is overrated. That prof could seriously put the makers of Ambien out of business if he just recorded his lectures and sold them for ten bucks a pop." He perks up, grinning, and she can't help but notice the humour doesn't reach his eyes. "I may be onto something there. I should bring a digital recorder to class. I could make a fortune, provided I can stay awake long enough to edit the final product."

Jess leans back in her seat and stretches out her arms, feeling her spine pop in a very satisfying way. "You're incorrigible," she smiles.

"So how goes the newfound domestic bliss?"

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, come on. I spent all day with Sam yesterday, and it was all Jess this and Jess that, and practically 'Jess walks on water.' Nauseating. It was like when I first introduced the two of you all over again. The boy's besotted. So I figure that you're not exactly discouraging this."

She shrugs. "I don't know. I can't figure out if it's real, or if he's just trying to make me happy somehow."

"I don't see what the problem is," he kicks one foot, reminding her of a fidgety toddler. "He wants it, you want it..." he waves vaguely. "So, you know. Dayenu!"

"Are you drunk?"

"Not yet, my sexy little law-clerk in the making," he flashes his teeth at her again in one of those mirthless smiles that appear to be his trademark these days. Not for the first time she wonders just what the hell happened to the dedicated med student she made friends with during freshman year. "I plan on getting that way before it's dark out, though."

She puts down her pen, shakes her head. Outside she can see students lounging on the campus grounds, enjoying the fall weather, books and papers and backpacks strewed about the ground like oddly-coloured leaves.

"Brady..."

"Don't worry," he interrupts. "I'm not quite so irresponsible as to show up drunk to your place. I like to think I'm a better friend than that."

"That's not what I was going to say."

"But you were thinking it," he waggles a finger at her, and she blushes, because she was thinking exactly that. "Don't worry, it's fine. I'm a charming and devilishly handsome reprobate, but a reprobate nonetheless, I know it. But Sam deserves better than that, and so do you. I have six whole other days in the week to get wasted, you know."

"You don't have to," she tries, but he waves her off with a self-deprecating smirk.

"Sam thinks he can save me too, I think. It's a little heartbreaking, really. He's having to re-learn the same lesson. At least you're not fooling yourself anymore."

She sighs, stares out the window at the people on the lawn. "You know we're always here to help, right? If you ever decide you want—"

"I get it," he interrupts, sitting up straight, and suddenly all his earlier nonchalance is gone. His eyes bore right through her, and it takes all her self-control not to recoil in her seat. "I do get it, and thanks and all that, but I don't need your pity. You don't know anything about me, or my life, and you've got no business interfering with how I want to live it."

Jess jerks her head once in acknowledgement. Brady's a friend, but they've never been close, and it's not like she's in a position to judge him.

The bitter smile is back, and he swings himself out of his seat with an ease that belies his height. "You're a good person, Jess. It's why I thought you and Sam would hit it off. But that doesn't give you a free pass to meddle where it's not needed." He pauses in the doorway, turns and leans forward slightly to lend emphasis to his words. "I don't want to be saved. Not by you, and definitely not by Sam."


	12. Chapter 12

Gah. Apologies for the delay, once again. The good news is that this particular story is coming to an end. I am planning a sequel, because the whole story hasn't been told yet. Thanks for sticking with me!

* * *

**Chapter 12**

Lord knows there's plenty of bad stuff out there to keep even a slack hunter busy, and Bobby Singer has never considered himself a slacker. So he's managed to keep himself fully occupied in the last four and a half months, busy enough not to let himself worry too hard about Sam and Dean, even though no one has seen hide nor hair of John Winchester since the week before Sam's accident. Still, Dean is lousy at keeping in touch, and there's only so much being in the dark that Bobby's willing to put up with. Palo Alto isn't all that far, he reasons with himself, just a few days' drive, and he could use the change of scenery. He doesn't bother to call, though in retrospect he realizes that was probably not one of his better plans as he ends up on the doorstep to the apartment that Dean has been sharing with Sam and his girlfriend early one evening. Oh well. It's not like he's planning to spend the night or anything —there are hotels, after all.

He rings the bell and waits, resisting the sudden urge to fidget with his baseball cap. Nothing happens, and for a moment he wonders if he mistimed his visit, if they're out for some reason, or even if he got the address wrong, but then he hears a soft scraping sound from the other side of the door, the sound of a deadbolt being drawn back. The door swings open slowly, and his breath lodges in his throat when he catches sight of Sam Winchester, leaning on a pair of shining silver forearm crutches. The kid's a lot taller than he remembers, even hunched forward awkwardly, though he was getting pretty tall the last time he saw him. Other than that, though, he's not sure he would have recognized him if he passed him on the street. The boy looks terrible, rail-thin and hollow-cheeked, with deep circles under his eyes, his face pinched, pain lines around his mouth and eyes. His right leg is encased in what Bobby guesses is an external fixator hidden underneath a modified pants leg.

"Can I help you?"

Something clenches hard around Bobby's heart, and he swallows a sudden lump in his throat. "It's good to see you, boy."

Sam blinks, expression going from simply curious and maybe a little wary to outright anxious. "I'm sorry... d-do I know you? Am I supposed to know you?"

Bobby nods. Somehow, even knowing about the amnesia, he hadn't expected this. "I'm Bobby Singer. Did Dean tell you about me?"

Sam chews on his lip. "Uh, yeah. He said... yeah. You're Uncle Bobby?"

"Sam? Is everything all right?" A woman's voice floats through the entrance, followed shortly by its owner, a tall, pretty girl with blond hair who Bobby assumes must be Jessica. She puts an arm carefully around his waist, and directs a look at Bobby that makes him very glad he's not this girl's enemy. "Can we help you?"

He scratches his head under the baseball cap. "I probably should have called first, sorry. I'm the boys' Uncle Bobby."

The suspicious look fades a little. "You're the one the hospital called when Sam had his accident."

"Yeah, that's right."

"Dean's at work," she says pointedly, and he understands what she's driving at. He could be anyone, after all, without Dean there to vouch for him. Trust Sam to pick himself a girl who was smart as well as beautiful.

He pulls out his wallet, moving slowly enough that he won't alarm them, then flips it open. "This good enough?"

It's a photograph taken the year before Sam left for Stanford, taken before he threatened to fill John's backside full of buckshot, when the family was still getting along well enough to put up with his demands that they all hold still just long enough for a photograph. John and Dean are laughing at a shared joke, and even Sam is smiling a little, head ducked down, his hand on Bobby's shoulder. He can see the moment where Jessica relents, when her expression turns warm.

"That's perfect. Would you like to come in?"

He follows them inside, moving slowly to compensate for Sam's awkward shuffle with the crutches, and it almost breaks his heart to watch him move like that. It was always Dean whose physical prowess was John Winchester's pride and joy —and the boy could move like a panther it was true— but Bobby could tell that, given time, Sam would be just as lethal as his older brother. Just as soon as he got used to being half a foot taller than he used to be. Sam catches him staring as he lowers himself carefully into an armchair, setting the crutches aside, and his face flushes.

"I'm b-better than I was... but there's, uh. There's neurological d-damage, you know? Kind of fucked up my coordination."

Bobby nods. The stuttering is new, too, he notes. "I figured as much. Dean's been phoning, now and then, but he ain't exactly been a font of information. I wanted to see for myself how you were."

Sam's wringing his hands in his lap, head ducked down, but he glances up through his bangs, and smiles wryly. "W-well, here I am."

"You're looking good," Bobby lies. He's been a con artist for twenty years, he figures he can get away with it, but Sam looks up sharply, and then rolls his eyes.

"Y-you don't need to lie to me. I know what I l-look like. Believe it or n-not, it's an improvement."

"Can I get you something to drink?" Jessica is hovering, and directs a slightly hostile look at him even as she offers. "We've got beer, some soda, or water."

"Beer'd be great."

It's more to have something to do with his hands than anything else, but the beer feels good going down. None of this is how he imagined it going, this awkwardness, the heavy silences. He wishes Dean was here —Dean's always been the social lubricant between Sam and the rest of the world, all easygoing smiles and ready jokes.

Jessica hands Sam a glass of water and a small plastic cup full of pills of various sizes and colours, her look daring him to say anything, even though Sam squirms self-consciously as he swallows all of it.

"Do you have a place to stay in town?" she asks, very obviously changing the subject.

"Caught sight of a motel not far, I'll book in there later."

Sam looks up. "You could always crash on the couch, if you're okay with that. We don't really have anywhere else."

The lump reappears in Bobby's throat. "That ain't necessary," he says, oddly touched. "I ain't exactly hurting for money, and I'm past the age of sleeping on other people's couches. But thank you."

Sam shrugs diffidently. "Dean says you're family... and we don't exactly have much of that. So, y'know..."

His girlfriend smooths a hand over his hair, and he glances up at her with a look of such obvious fondness that for a moment Bobby feels as though he's intruding. And maybe he is, he tells himself. Sam looks even more tired and drawn than when Bobby first arrived, and that's when it truly hits home, how very fragile the kid is, even after all this time. He pushes himself to his feet.

"Well, look. I'm going to be in town for a couple of days. How about you or Dean give me a call when you're free to visit? I want to catch up, but I'm an old man and I need my eight hours."

Jessica throws him a grateful smile for giving Sam an obvious out, pats her boyfriend's shoulder before seeing him to the door. "Thank you. I know it doesn't seem like much, but..."

"I get it. I'll be around, and then maybe we can get to know each other. The kid's obviously crazy about you, so that makes you good people in my books."

She smiles wider. "You're sweet," she says, and leans forward to kiss him on the cheek.

"Don't mention it," Bobby grumbles, glad it's dark enough out that she can't catch him blushing, then heads down the stairs back to his truck.

~SPN¬

"You sleep okay?"

Dean makes a face at Sam. "Shouldn't I be the one asking you that question, nightmare boy?"

"Shut up. Anyway, I asked first," Sam wobbles a little, leans on Dean's arm as he helps him into the wheelchair and pushes him into the bathroom. "You look like shit."

"Pot. Kettle. Etcetera." Sam feels a little warm, but he jerks his head away when Dean tries to check him for fever.

"Dean."

"Seriously, it's like that bitchface is a God-given, natural talent. I'm fine, Sam. I had a late night, and the bar was busy, that's all. I'm just tired."

Dean does his best to deflect the question, but Sam's always been like a dog with a bone about these things, and he figures he's not going to let it go so easily. The truth is that Sam's not far off the mark: Dean pretty much feels like shit. After weeks of negotiation Dr. Blaize convinced him to see someone about his ankle, arguing that he couldn't take care of Sam if he didn't take care of himself —and goddamn all these people using Sam like an ace up their sleeve to emotionally blackmail him into doing stuff, anyway. It's like he's got a giant red button sewn in the middle of his chest that everyone knows how to push, and at this point it's starting to piss him off. Still, between the PT and the new, better painkillers, he has to admit it's helped a lot. He's still probably going to need surgery, somewhere down the line, but for now it's manageable.

It's just exhausting, keeping it all from Sam and Jess while trying to keep the rest of his life under a semblance of control. He's ever had to go it alone, before. Dad was always there, and even when Dad was temporarily out of reach, he used to have Sam. Now Dad is gone, God only knows where, and Sam... well, Sam isn't exactly Sam these days. Sure, he's a pretty close copy —still the same shy, geeky little brother with a temper and a stubborn streak a mile long— but the Sam from before always knew exactly what he was thinking without ever having to ask. Now sometimes Dean catches his brother looking at him like he's the world's most difficult riddle, lower lip caught in his teeth.

"Did Jess tell you Uncle Bobby came by?" Sam tries to keep his tone light, but he makes a soft, pained sound when Dean transfers him to the toilet seat.

"Yeah. I was gonna call later. What hurts?"

Sam huffs a long-suffering sigh, as though it's a major inconvenience to admit to being in pain, then shrugs. "I dunno. It's weird. My leg hurts, but it feels different. Like maybe the fixator is rubbing against the skin or something. It's nothing, I'm just being neurotic."

"Why don't you let the professionals be the judge of that?"

"What, like you?"

"For starters," Dean grins, drops to a crouch and delicately picks Sam's leg up by the ankle, tracing gentle fingers along the metallic pins embedded in Sam's flesh. He finds the source of the discomfort pretty quickly. "Looks like one of these is infected. I'll call the hospital when we're done, see if they can fit you in this afternoon, get you started on antibiotics. Hold still, I'll get the first aid kit."

In spite of his warning, Sam flinches as Dean does his best to clean and disinfect the site, hissing through his teeth. "Ow."

"Baby."

"You try having, like, twenty metallic pins in your leg, see how you like it," Sam grumbles, eyes closed, and Dean takes advantage of the opening to reach up and press his hand to his brother's forehead.

"Were you planning on telling me about the fever?"

"What fever?"

"Don't play dumb, Sammy."

"It's Sam," his brother snaps, and Dean grins, because in spite of it all, this feels so damned normal. "And I didn't realize, okay? I'm hot and cold all the time and I can't tell if my head hurts because of the accident or a fever or because I've been trying to read too goddamned long. I don't know anymore, okay?" he scrubs at his face with one hand in obvious frustration, drops his gaze to the floor and won't meet Dean's eyes.

"Aw, hey, Sammy —Sam. Come on," Dean pulls out his best cajoling tone. "I didn't mean it like that, okay? I just don't want you hiding shit like this from me, okay?"

"Fine," Sam mumbles, still staring at the floor.

Dean sighs. "Okay. Let's get this show on the road. I'll call the hospital when we're done."

He ends up settling Sam in his now-customary spot on the sofa, adds a couple of Tylenol to the usual cocktail of meds to help with the fever and the headache, and leaves a glass of water within reach. There's a list of phone numbers for Sam's doctors half as long as his arm stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet shaped like a ladybug, and it's depressingly easy to get an emergency appointment for mid-afternoon to get Sam's leg checked again. This isn't something anyone wants to mess around with. They've been lucky about infections —well, not so much lucky as really, obsessively careful— and they all knew that some infections at the piercing sites were all but inevitable, but sometimes it feels like they can never catch a goddamned break.

The phone rings while he's still holding it, startling him so badly he almost drops it.

"Dean?"

"Bobby, hey," he grins, and suddenly the feeling of relief that comes over him is so powerful that he has to grab for the nearest chair and sits, his eyes stinging.

"You all right? Am I calling at a bad time? I know I left my number, but I guess I just got impatient."

"God, no. It's, uh, it's good to hear your voice." Dean clears his throat, hoping he doesn't sound as choked up as he feels. It's been such a damned long time since he's had someone nearby who understands, well, about everything.

"Idjit. You'd hear it more often if you bothered to pick up the phone once in a while and call," Bobby snorts.

"Sorry, Bobby. Uh, you in town long?"

"Couple of days. You think you and Sam would be up to a visit?"

Dean resists the urge to smack his forehead against the kitchen table. "Shit, I'm really sorry, Bobby, I gotta take Sam to the hospital this afternoon. He's got an infection we need to get cleared up, and... uh, anyway," he stops, reminding himself that not everyone is interested in hearing the details of Sam's medical care. "How about tomorrow? Would that be okay?"

"Yeah, of course. I got some things in town to look into today anyhow. You just tell me when, and I'll come by, how's that?"

"That would be great, thanks Bobby."

"Don't mention it. I'll see you tomorrow."

~SPN~

Sam has a bad night, for the first time in weeks. It's not like he sleeps perfectly at any given time, but generally he's been doing better. Dean's boss lets him go home, though, after Jess calls him, sounding like she's on the verge of tears, and doesn't even dock him for the hours, for which he's pathetically grateful. Jess is waiting at the door when he gets in, her face drawn.

"I'm sorry, but I just... it's really bad tonight. He's fighting me on everything, and he can't sleep but he's not really awake either, and it's been nothing but nightmares ever since I got him to even lie down."

He pulls her into a hug, and for a second she lets herself sag against him, rests her forehead against his collarbone. Then she pulls herself together, rubs her face with both hands until her cheeks are red and shining, and tries a smile.

"So, how was _your_ day?"

"Trivial, by comparison. Though you should remind me to tell you about the drunk lady in the emerald-coloured power suit at some point. There's a cautionary tale in there about mixing tequila and amaretto. I tell you, I cannot make this shit up. How is he now?"

She glances back over her shoulder, as though she might somehow be able to see right through the wall to where Sam is supposed to be sleeping. "I don't know. He's been quiet for about ten minutes, but that doesn't mean anything."

"Is it the meds?"

"I don't even know anymore. I think the antibiotics aren't helping, but I don't think it's that. He's been throwing up all evening, then I thought he was getting better, but he says his head hurts, and nothing's helping. I was about to try the Imitrex, see if that works at all."

"Okay. Take a break, I'll go check on him."

Dean rubs her arm once, almost absently, and makes his way quietly to the master bedroom, inches forward in the darkened room. Sam is half-curled on his side in the hospital bed, and even in the darkness Dean can see by the set of his shoulders, the tension in the lines of his body, that he's awake. He pulls the wheelchair up to the bed and sits in it, putting him at eye level with Sam.

"Hey," he keeps his voice low, just above a whisper, but Sam jerks as though he's been stung.

"You're early," he says, and there are volumes in those two words. "I g-guess Jess called you?"

"Yeah, but don't sweat it. The boss isn't taking away my hours or anything. What's going on with you?"

Sam curls further in on himself. "I don't know," he moans quietly. "I j-just f-feel like sh-shit. Everything hurts."

"You take anything?" It's hard to imagine that half an hour ago Sam was fighting Jess on anything, but Dean has seen it before. He might be docile enough now, but it's only because he's spent the whole evening exhausting himself. Stubborn doesn't begin to describe his brother.

Sam snorts, one arm over his face, muffling his words. "I lost t-track. F-fuck. I-is Jess okay? I w-was really sh-shitty with her."

Dean reaches over and smooths his hair a little. Trust Sam to be worried about his girlfriend's feelings when he's the one who's been puking his guts out the whole evening. "She's fine. Worried about you. You gonna hurl again?"

"D-don't think so."

"Okay. First things first, we need to nuke that migraine from orbit."

"It's th-the only way t-to be sure," Sam agrees, and even though it comes out slurred, Dean grins.

"That's my boy."

It's a routine enough matter now to administer meds of any kind, and the new migraine meds come in nifty disposable packets these days, which makes things a hell of a lot easier. Dean remembers when thermometers were still made of glass and mercury and he and Dad spent ages twisting the thermometers and holding them up to the light to figure out whether or not Sammy had a fever as a kid. Shaking the thermometer was kind of fun, though, and he misses it a little bit. Not enough to go back, but a little. He stays where he is, perched on the edge of Sam's bed, one hand resting lightly on his brother's hip, until he feels him relax, ever so slightly.

Jess comes back in about fifteen minutes later, her hair brushed and pulled back in a tidy ponytail. She smells fresh, like soap and mint toothpaste. She drops a quick, gentle kiss on Sam's head.

"I figured you'd be good for your brother."

Sam looks up tiredly at her. "Sorry." Dean can't figure out what he's apologizing for, but Jess just strokes his hair.

"Apologize tomorrow, when you're not feeling like you've gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson. I expect flowers and chocolate and a poem." Sam snorts softly, amused, and she continues. "You think you can sleep now?"

"Can try."

"That's the spirit. I'm going to grab Dean and we're going to have a drink, but we're not far, okay? Just in the living room."

"'kay."

Jess curls up in Sam's usual spot on the sofa, bare feet tucked under her thighs, cradling a beer in both hands, and lets her eyes close for a moment. She looks about how Dean feels —tired, worn thin in places. He lets himself drop into the armchair he likes best, cracks open a beer bottle with his ring and takes a swig. Jess opens her eyes to look at him.

"Did the hospital say anything about the surgery? Is this going to set back the date?"

Dean shakes his head. "No, we caught it early enough, they think. Ten days of antibiotics, and if we're careful they're going to go ahead with everything."

"You know this isn't going to fix everything, right?"

He fiddles with his beer, picking at the label on the bottle. "I know. I keep sort of hoping, though. Stupid."

"Not stupid. But you still need to remember that. He's getting his leg fixed, nothing more."

"I know. I just can't get used to him like this," he keeps his voice low, worried that Sam will overhear, even though the meds have probably knocked him out by now.

"I don't know," she shifts a little. "He's not so different. It's hard when he's sick, but... on his good days, it's not so bad."

"Easy for you to say. You've still got your boyfriend." He knows he sounds bitter, but he's tired and for no good reason he resents being pulled out of work, even though he was kind of having a shitty evening, and being home is usually preferable to being on his feet all night.

She flushes, mouth pulling into the beginnings of a frown. "He's still your brother too."

"I know that. But everything's changed between us, and as far as I can see, not much has changed between you two."

Her mouth tightens further, and her eyes blaze. "You're trying to pick a fight. Just remember, Dean Winchester, that you don't know a goddamn thing about me, or about what I had with Sam while you were gone. So, you know what? You don't get to be a dick with me. I'm going to bed."

She gets up, leaving her beer behind for him to clear away. He takes it into the kitchen, and doesn't bother switching on the light before he settles onto one of the chairs. He finishes his own beer, then shrugs and polishes off hers as well. He lights a cigarette, stays there for a long time, staring into the darkness.

~SPN~

"You feeling up to a field trip?" Brady asks, when he comes by on Wednesday morning.

Dean is long gone, off to see Bobby for the day, and Sam can't really begrudge him that, even though he always feels a little abandoned when Dean does leave him during the day. Not that he'll ever admit it out loud, because it's not like Dean doesn't feel guilty enough about it all. It's written all over his face every time, and even if Sam doesn't remember anything about what their lives used to be like before, it doesn't take a genius to figure out that Dean's used to carrying burdens that are far too heavy for him. It's not fair to expect him and Jess to be around all the time.

Brady's looking at him expectantly, waiting for an answer. Sam feels like ten kinds of warmed-over dog crap, but he forces himself to sit up a little on the couch, leaning back on his elbows. "What did you have in mind?"

"Oh, nothing too drastic, but I figured since it was a nice day and I'm not hungover, we could go hang out on campus. See the old haunts. I can take you on a 'Sam Winchester, this is your life' tour of places you hauled me out of when I was too drunk or high or both to see straight."

Sam makes a face. "Sounds like fun," he says sarcastically. "Why are we friends again?"

Brady makes a show of sticking out his tongue at him. "Because I'm fun and awesome, and when you're more mobile you and I will totally go out and party. I just can't see you burning up the dance floor with this little accessory," he taps a finger gently against one of the rings of the external fixator. It's one of the things that, perversely, Sam likes about him: that he doesn't get all awkward about that fact that Sam is, for all intents and purposes, pretty much crippled.

"Actually, I feel like shit."

"Beg to differ. For one," Brady points out, "no stuttering, which means we're ahead of the game. For two, no fever. Also good, because that would automatically rule out taking you anywhere. For three, you've been cooped up in here way too long, winter's coming, and you're going to be cooped up in here even longer than that when that happens. So we're going out. We're taking the wheelchair, and we're going for a couple of hours, three tops, but we're going. It'll be good for you."

"Well, you'd know, I guess," Sam mutters, pushing himself all the way upright.

"I absolutely would. Trust me, I was almost a doctor once, remember? Seriously, Sam, it's not good for you to see only the four walls in this place and the hospital. You need to get out more, see people other than your brother and your girlfriend and, hell, even me."

"Okay, okay," Sam raises his hands in mock-surrender. "You had me at 'cooped up.' Jesus."

Brady grins. "Knew you'd see it my way. Did you have breakfast yet? If not, I can whip something up before we go. And by 'whip up' I mean 'pour milk and cereal into a bowl,' because I don't cook."

"Yes, I had breakfast." He refrains from rolling his eyes. "And took my meds, and did my range of motions exercises and everything. I've been a very, very good traumatic brain injury patient today, doctor."

"Bitchy, I like it," Brady hands him his crutches. "Let's go, gimpy. Prove to me you can use those things without falling over."

Sam huffs, but he forces himself to his feet, ignoring the pounding in his head that the movement provokes. He's not dizzy, though, which is an improvement over the past few days. "Do Dean and Jessica know what you have planned?"

"Only the parts that aren't disreputable. But yes, they do know we're going out. Dean bitched about it for a good ten minutes before Jess shut him up," Brady follows him to the front entrance, one hand hovering at the small of his back, just in case, and even though normally it would drive him crazy, today Sam finds it oddly steadying. "You good while I get the wheelchair?"

It doesn't take long, but even so Sam can feel his arms starting to shake a little. Brady carries the chair down the front stairs, then turns and trots back up to fetch him. Sam glances up at him, but Brady doesn't move to take his arm, just positions himself nearby in case he falters. He has to take the stairs one at a time, moving the crutches carefully, and by the time he's cleared the short staircase there's sweat trickling down his spine, and he can feel his lower back cramping up, but he shoots Brady a triumphant grin. Stairs are still the worst part of it all, but he's been getting steadily better.

"Check you out, getting up and down the stairs all by yourself like a big boy," Brady grins, pushes the wheelchair right up to him.

"Yeah, well," Sam bites his lip. "I, uh, I could use a hand, here."

"Your back?"

Sam nods, and tries not to feel too humiliated when he has to brace himself heavily on Brady's forearms in order to lower himself into his seat, but it's pretty much impossible for him to get up and down on his own when his back starts hurting, and he doesn't want to ruin the day before it's even started. Brady clips the crutches to the back of the chair, then grasps the handlebars.

"Ready?"

"Yeah, I guess." It's strange, being outside in the open, and Sam finds himself wiping his palms on his thighs, hands clammy with apprehension. He feels exposed, and has to remind himself that the few people outside aren't, in fact, staring at him. It's just your imagination, he tells himself sternly.

"Hey," Brady leans over, puts a hand on his shoulder. "You're fine. I figure we'll start out slow. I don't know about you, but I could use a coffee to get us on our way. How about I take you to the nearest Starbucks and we get you a low-fat vanilla latte? They're your favourite, right?"

"Are they?" Sam has to stop and think about it. "It sounds good, anyway."

"You bet it is. Come on. It's not far, and I'm looking forward to treating you to the kind of coffee that would make your brother have a stroke."


	13. Chapter 13

This is it, folks, the beginning of the end! There is one more chapter after this, and I promise it will be posted soon. It's about half-written already, so there won't be massive delays like the last couple of chapters. Thank you for sticking with me!

* * *

**Chapter 13**

"Penny for your thoughts."

Sam snaps out of his reverie to find Brady watching him intently. They're on the lawn on campus, where Brady has spread out a blanket and a pretty passable picnic. Sam is still sitting in his wheelchair, even the thought of trying to sit on the ground making his bones ache, but he figures it's the thought that counts, and the food is a nice touch. Brady's been bitching about it not being a real picnic without alcohol, but the words don't have much heat to them, and Sam figures it's mostly for show. For all that he has a reputation as a partier, Brady doesn't seem to be doing all that much of it lately. These outings into the 'real world' as Brady likes to put it have become a regular thing, every Wednesday and sometimes even more often, when Brady pops up out of the blue and wrests Sam out of Dean's slightly overprotective grasp. In spite of himself, Sam has to admit he enjoys the change of pace and scenery, and Dean's starting to look slightly less worn around the edges. Slightly.

"Would you buy it if I said I wasn't thinking of anything?"

Brady grins. "Nope. You've got what's pretty much a blank slate there, and I know you. You're too fond of thinking not to try to fill in all the gaps that you have. It'll go better if you ask questions instead of trying to make shit up."

Sam huffs, but it's too close to the truth to simply dismiss. "I was trying to figure out if I could remember which buildings I had classes in. Even if I don't remember taking the classes, I thought that maybe I could tell which building was which, kind of like the way I remember the LSAT questions but don't remember writing my name on the exam booklet. Like, I don't know, retracing my steps to find my keys."

Brady tilts his head. "Not a bad idea. Any luck?"

"Nope."

"Worth a shot, I guess. You're putting a lot of pressure on yourself to remember things, though. You realize there isn't a cash prize at the end, right? And no one's going to punish you if you don't remember, either."

Sam kicks a little with his heel against the footrest of his wheelchair, mostly out of frustration. "I know. It's just... I feel like everyone's waiting for me to have, like, this moment of epiphany where everything comes back in a big rush of memories or something."

"And by everyone you mean Dean and Jess."

He blushes. "Yeah, I suppose. And me too. I can't even watch those made-for-TV movies about people with amnesia anymore because they depress me."

Brady hands him half a chicken sandwich. "Have something to eat. And seriously, how much television have you been watching?"

"Way too much," Sam laughs. "Dean has a thing for 'Days of Our Lives,' and most of the time I can't concentrate on much apart from that. It's easier, anyway, and sometimes he falls asleep."

That gets him a considering look. "And that's a good thing?"

Sam reluctantly takes a bite of his sandwich. He's not hungry, but it gives him a chance to try to think of a way out of the trap he just set for himself. "That's not what I meant."

"I can't presume to know what you mean until you tell me. Come on, Winchester, level with me. What's eating at you?"

"I don't know. I'm going to come off sounding ungrateful."

"Good thing that I'm pretty superficial and mostly don't care enough to go telling people every word you say to me. Besides, you'd be surprised at how cathartic talking can be, especially to someone who's not your shrink. Come on, spill."

He sighs. "I don't know. It's just... he's exhausted, and so is Jess, and there's fuck all I can do about it, you know? I mean, it's great that you come and babysit once a week, but they're both pulling double shifts all the time. Jess has work and school, and Dean's working all night and trying to take care of me all day, and the only time they both get a break is when you come by. And it's not like they use their break to relax, or whatever, they just use it to catch up on whatever it is they're behind on because of me."

"Uh-huh. So... basically it's all your fault."

He makes a face. "I swear to God, if you make one crack about my getting emo..."

"You'll what?" Brady grins. "Hit me with your crutches? Bring it on, gimpy. It'll be good physical therapy, trying to catch me."

"Fuck you."

"For you, baby? Anytime."

"Oh my God," Sam drops his head into his hands. "Don't you take anything seriously?"

"Not really. I don't really have to tell you that you're taking on several extra helpings of guilt, right? You're a smart guy, you know all this already," Brady starts packing stuff away, and to his surprise Sam notes that the sun is already starting to sink lower on the horizon. "So I'm not going to waste my breath. Although," he looks up pointedly, "I would like to ask if it's only coincidental that you're getting all antsy about this —yet again— only two days before you go back under the knife."

Sam twists his hands in his lap. "Um."

"Yeah, I thought so. So what's got you nervous, exactly? The surgery? The anesthesia? What?"

"It's stupid."

"Tell me anyway. Otherwise you'll have to tell Dean or Jess, and really, which is the lesser of those evils?"

"I'm beginning to wonder," Sam says pointedly, then relents at another look from Brady. "Oh, fine. But it's stupid, I'm telling you." He hesitates, takes a breath to steady himself. "I, uh... I'm scared that I'm going to wake up and it's all going to be gone again," he blurts, then ducks his head, eyes squeezed shut as if that will prevent Brady from seeing just how badly he's blushing.

A hand curls around the back of his neck, heavy and reassuring. "Is that all?" his friend says softly. "Because, yeah, that's a _totally stupid_ thing to worry about, since that's exactly what happened the last time you woke up after being unconscious. I'm sure no one at all would understand that."

"Shut up," Sam manages, but it comes out as more of a hiccup than anything else.

Brady keeps his hand where it is, rubs for a second behind Sam's ear with his thumb, and Sam finds himself relaxing with a small shudder. "I will in a second. But here's the thing: you're going to be fine. I promise, you are going to be absolutely, one hundred percent fine. Eventually you're going to look back on all of this, and it's all going to seem like a really faraway dream, like something that happened to someone else."

Sam snorts, but Brady's thumb keeps rubbing in circles. His voice stays quiet, and it kind of feels like being enveloped in something nice and soft and comforting, like an old blanket. "I know what I'm talking about. Trust me on this when I promise you that everything's going to work out for you."

* * *

"No!"

The scream jolts Dean out of the light doze he's just managed to achieve and catapults him straight out of bed. He scrambles to disentangle himself from his blankets, winces and curses as he lands awkwardly on his bad ankle, and hobbles through the living room toward Sam and Jess' bedroom.

"No! Jess!"

The nightmares have become exponentially worse since Sam's last surgery. At first it was attributed to the mild post-operative infection he developed —nothing to worry, the doctors assured them. Plenty of patients developed infections, and Sam was responding well to the antibiotics. So well that the fever disappeared after less than two days, but not the nightmares. Those just got worse, and nobody could quite figure out why, and Sam could never quite remember just what it was that terrified him so badly when he was asleep.

Dean limps into the bedroom to find that Jess is already trying to snap Sam out of it, but he's half-awake and fighting to free himself from her grip. She's already got one hell of a bruise on one cheek from a few days ago when she wasn't able to dodge quickly enough, so Dean interposes himself, taking hold of Sam's arms and hauling him up to hold him against his chest. It's a lot easier to do now since Sam has taken to sleeping in the same bed as Jess, but it's still not exactly a cakewalk. He's still just as tall and almost as heavy as ever, and he fights like a cornered wildcat.

"Sammy, wake up! It's just a dream, you're safe. Everybody's safe, okay?"

It hasn't escaped Dean's notice that half the time Sam wakes up screaming his girlfriend's name. He may not know what the dreams are about specifically, but it's not a stretch to figure out that something bad is happening to Jess inside Sam's mind. It's worrisome, is what it is, although Dean can't figure out if he's worried for Sam or worried for Jess or worried for both of them. Jess is turning into a zombie from the strain of so many nights of interrupted sleep. Sam isn't much better, but at least he gets to nap during the day, when Jess has classes and her TA job and all the other tiny things involved in day-to-day living that Dean never even thought about before he met them. Granted, he tries to help out as best he can, but the fact remains that his job hours and the fact that he spends most of every day directly taking care of Sam means that the majority of the errands and stuff that has to get done during daylight hours falls to Jess, and it's beginning to take its toll on her.

Mercifully Sam stops screaming and fighting him, just goes lax in his arms, shaking, breathing in shallow pants. Dean strokes the back of his head. "There you go. That's it. You want your pain meds, Sammy?"

"N-no. Where's Jess?"

Jess leans over to rub circles on his back. "I'm right here, baby. You were just having a nightmare. Take a deep breath for me, okay? You're close to hyperventilating."

Sam sucks in one shuddering breath, then another, and slowly pulls himself out of Dean's arms. He wipes his eyes roughly on the back of his wrist. "I'm okay. Sorry."

"You don't need to apologize, Sammy."

"Do you remember what it was about this time?" Jess' voice is gentle but insistent.

Although Dean would be happy just to have Sam push everything back down where it can't do any harm, the doctors have all agreed that if he can remember the dreams it will probably help. So he just bites his tongue, and lets Jess do her Dr. Phil thing. Sam just shakes his head, though, and Dean can see he's trying to keep his hands from shaking.

"I d-don't... I think there was a f-fire. I don't know. It keeps b-burning." Sam scrubs at his eyes again, his breath hitching. "S-sorry."

"Seriously, dude, quit apologizing."

Sam shakes his head, won't meet his gaze, and after a moment Dean realizes that he's crying in earnest and trying to hide it. Jess sees it half a second before he does, and wraps her arms around him, kneeling on the bed. Sam lets out a choked sob against her shoulder.

"'m sorry."

"I know you are," she kisses him on the temple. "I know. It's okay."

She looks over at Dean, and even in the semi-darkness of the room he can tell she's giving him one of those looks that means he should give them some space. He blows out a breath, nods, and slides off the bed, trying not to feel yet again like the damned third wheel in this place. It's not what Jess means, he knows that. It's just not the same, not like it was before. He's used to Sam only wanting him, only needing him when he's sick, and this —this is new. This Sam won't cry in front of him if he can help it, like it's something he's ashamed of, or something maybe too private for even Dean to see. Not for the first time even the thought of it makes something clench in Dean's chest.

It's not personal, he reminds himself. Sam doesn't remember all the nights spent in shitty motel rooms and shittier apartments. He doesn't remember hanging out with Dean on couches that were more spring than cushion, watching cartoons and drinking apple juice when he had a cold. He doesn't remember clinging to Dean through endless cases of flu, or of nights spent on the bathroom floor during bouts of gastroenteritis. This Sam is a blank slate: his life is barely five months old, even if he's physically the same age as that other, now entirely hypothetical Sam Winchester, who used to be able to tell Dean's mood even from the other room. This Sam doesn't remember any of it, and it's no one's fault. It's stupid to be angry at him, to be angry at Jess for taking Dean's place, because that's really not what it is, not at all. Except that it's Jess Sam is curled up with now, Jess with whom he shares a bed, Jess for whom he seems to reserve those rare smiles which light up his face. It's all fucking unfair, is what it is.

He should just go back to bed. He's barely had an hour's worth of sleep, and it's screwing with his mind. Dean scrubs a hand over his face, then makes his way into the kitchen, grabs the bottle of Jack's from the cupboard, and heads out into the back yard for a cigarette instead.

* * *

"I want to tell Jess the truth," Sam says out of the blue one day.

He's followed Dean outside, carefully manoeuvring through the sliding glass doors with his crutches. It's weird, seeing Sam without his external fixator, but pretty cool, too. He's been outfitted with one of those removable casts now that the incisions from the surgery are starting to heal properly, but for the moment he's under strict orders not to put any weight at all on his leg. Dean definitely does not hover while Sam pulls up a chair and carefully lowers himself into it. Keeping a casual eye out does not constitute hovering, it just means he's being a good big brother and making sure Sam doesn't faceplant. Because he's been told by Sam's doctors —and Sam himself, a lot less politely— that Sam needs to start doing things without a safety net, to learn how to cope on his own. The more he does things for himself, the faster he'll get better. So he's resolutely not hovering.

Dean lights a cigarette instead. "The truth about what?" he asks, trying to sound casual, and probably failing, guessing by the epic bitchface Sam has just pulled.

"Dean."

He rolls his eyes, takes a drag off his cigarette and takes a moment to regret the fact that he's not going to be able to enjoy this really nice day anymore, because he's about to ruin Sam's mood —and his own as a consequence. "Okay, fine. And what are you going to tell her, exactly?"

"I don't know. I just don't want to lie to her anymore. It's not exactly the healthiest foundation for a relationship."

"Except that she won't believe you."

"Why wouldn't she?"

"Would you believe it if someone came and told you that ghosts and monsters were real?"

Sam shrugs. "I believed you, didn't I?"

It's hard to argue with that sort of logic. "Okay. Prove to me that I haven't lied to you. That I'm not completely crazy, suffering from some sort of psychotic break and that I'm convinced that all those things exist when they really don't."

There's a pause. "Well, for one, you're not exhibiting any of the other signs of a psychotic break."

Dean rolls his eyes. "And you're an expert on that, Sigmund?"

"Actually, Freud's theories pre-date—"

"Sam!"

Sam scowls at him. "You're not lying, and you're not suffering from a psychotic break. Why are you even saying those things? Or are you saying that you have been lying to me all this time, that all those things I know are true in my head aren't real, and that Dad's actually staying away because he really can't stand the sight of me?"

"Sammy, that's not..." Dean cringes in spite of himself. He's been trying not to think about their father, because he's sick of leaving messages that don't ever get answered. He's called every contact he has, and no one's heard a word, except for some second-and-third-hand rumours that John might be onto something big. "Look, I'm just saying... most civilians don't want the truth-is-out-there speech. They don't want to know about the things that go bump in the night, the monsters under the bed, the boogeymen in the closet. All that's going to accomplish is that Jess is going to think I'm filling your head with lies and whatever, and that's not exactly going to help, here."

"Jess isn't most people," Sam points out.

"I know you love her, but that doesn't mean she's going to accept this stuff at face value. I mean, you already knew this stuff when I told you —it's stuck in your subconscious or whatever, because you lived through it. I don't know, okay?" he stubs out his cigarette in the ashtray on the picnic table and lights another. "I'm just saying, you tell her, it could screw everything up."

"Maybe you should have more faith in people."

"That really never works out as well as you think it will, believe me." Dean keeps his gaze fixed on the table as he taps the ash off the end of his cigarette. He looks up to see Sam giving him a considering look. "What? I got something on my face?"

"You told someone."

"What?" He lets out a choked laugh, trying to brush it off, because it's damned unsettling to have Sam figure him out like that.

"You told someone, about what we do. About what you do. Was it a girl?" Sam lets out a triumphant bark of a laugh when he doesn't answer. "Oh my God, it was. What happened?"

He doesn't want to think about Cassie. "It's not important."

Sam's face softens. "Did you love her?"

For a second it's like they're working a case again, and Sam's worming his way into the witness' good graces by being all sympathetic, except that Dean isn't a witness and he doesn't want to care and share, or whatever. "I said it's not important!" he snaps, and Sam recoils like Dean just punched him.

"Sorry. I didn't mean... sorry. I won't mention it again."

Dean stubs out the rest of his cigarette. "It's just a sore point."

"I gathered."

He sighs. "It's not complicated. I thought... I thought I could trust her, because Dad and I had to leave for this other case, and I had this stupid idea that maybe she would, I don't know, wait for me. It was stupid. She yelled, told me I was crazy, and then she told me to lose her number."

"I'm sorry." The kicker is, he can tell Sam means it.

"Yeah, so am I."

"Jess is different, though." Sam is like a dog with a bone. "You know her as well as I do. Does she seem like the kind of person who'd freak out about this sort of thing?"

"Cassie didn't seem like it either. She's studying journalism. I figured that would make her more open-minded. I'm just saying, you're opening yourself up for a world of hurt, here." Dean can feel his tone turn pleading, because even if Sam can't see it, he knows exactly what's going to happen.

Yet again, Sam seems to see right through him. "You think she's going to make you leave."

"It's what I would do, if I thought it would keep you safe."

"Dean." Sam rolls his eyes. "You realize how stupid that sounds, right? Jess wouldn't throw you out just for something like that. At worst she'll think we're both nuts, and we'll have to explain it away to Dr. Blaize during some extra special family sessions or something. But I think you're wrong about her. I'm sorry your girlfriend was a bitch to you, but Jess isn't like that."

Sam's jaw has that set to it that Dean has learned to recognize spells utter defeat for whoever is planning to stand in his way. So he shrugs, shakes his head once.

"Have it your way. It's your funeral."

* * *

Jess has just about had her fill of cataclysmic life changes. Once in a lifetime is plenty, she thinks, watching her boyfriend as he sits on the sofa in their living room, not quite meeting her gaze. Sam looks like a puppy that thinks it's about to get kicked repeatedly, and she hates that she's the one who put that expression there —however undeservedly and indirectly. It means Sam trusts her, but only up to a point. They've been sleeping in the same bed, God, they've even made love a couple of times, slightly awkward as it was (and still good, even then), but he still doesn't trust her not to break his heart, and that really makes her actually want to kick him.

"Um, I'd feel better if you said something," Sam says to his fingers.

"What do you want me to say?" She's scared, and it comes out sounding angry.

He flinches. "I don't know. Something. Anything. Tell me I'm crazy, or whatever. I don't know," he repeats, a little helplessly.

"I need a cigarette."

He looks up at that, and quirks a smile. "Can I come with you? Or is this a leave-me-the-hell-alone-Sam kind of cigarette?"

She gets up, and fishes her pack out of the pocket of her jacket before threading her arms through the sleeves. October was a chilly month, and November is proving no more warm, two days in. "That sort of cigarette doesn't exist. Sometimes there might be an I-need-five-minutes-to-myself cigarette, but never a leave-me-the-hell-alone-Sam cigarette. That's not my brand."

"Okay. Do you need five minutes?"

"Nope. I need a cigarette. And maybe some fresh air."

"Won't be all that fresh if you're smoking."

She thwaps his head lightly on her way to the back door. "Don't be a smartass. You're in the process of trying to make me believe in fairy tales, so you'd better be nicer to me than that."

She slides the door open, slips out into the cool evening air, and fumbles with pack and lighter. A moment later Sam nudges the door farther open with his crutch and comes out to join her, leaning against the glass as it slides shut. Like this, it's easy to pretend that nothing has happened, that the last five months of their lives never existed. Apart from the crutches he looks the same as ever. Maybe a bit thinner, but in the dark like this she can't see the lines of pain and worry on his face, can't see the haunted, hungry look in his eyes whenever he thinks she isn't looking. In the dark, it's easier to pretend.

She blows out a cloud of smoke, watches as it billows and stretches into tendrils that disappear into the night. "So. Ghosts."

He huffs a laugh. "I know."

"And this is what you did before we met?" She's being sarcastic, but the situation warrants it. "Like, what, a hobby?"

"From what I gather, more like a driving obsession."

"So why are you telling me now?"

"So you believe me?"

"No," the end of her cigarette glows brightly in the dark. "I didn't say I believe you. I'm playing 'let's suppose' until I can make up my mind. We were going to get married, Sam, and you never told me any of this. So why tell me now?"

"Because I think lying to you before was a mistake."

"What if you didn't tell me before because none of it's true? What if your brother is filling your head with lies?"

"Dean wouldn't do that."

"How do you know?" She doesn't think it's true, but it would be a pretty simple explanation.

"Think about it," Sam says patiently. "If Dean wanted to screw with me, there are so many better ways he could go about it. Besides, this is all stuff I already knew, before he told me. I knew about the ghosts and the salt and the Black Dogs and the skinwalkers, and I made him explain it. I knew about it the same way I know how to operate a toaster and the same way I know portions of the legal code by heart. Whatever it is, it's something that was real to me before all of this."

She exhales in another cloud of smoke. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do with that. I kind of want to just believe that Dean's having some kind of prolonged psychotic episode."

"It would be simpler," Sam agrees, and she feels her world shift under her feet again, just a little to the left.

"Does Dean even know you decided to tell me all this? I mean, what am I supposed to say to him? I don't... what is it even going to change?" she asks a bit helplessly, because yesterday there was no such thing as monsters and now there is, and yet nothing in her life seems all that different. She's still going to get up in the morning, have breakfast, go to work, and worry about her boyfriend and try to figure out a way to pay all their bills, regardless of whether or not that guy in her class might be a werewolf.

"Uh, Dean sort of knows."

"Sort of?"

Sam looks a bit sheepish. "I, uh, kind of didn't tell him that I asked Brady to drop me home early tonight, so I could talk to you."

"Oh, God, please tell me you're not serious. He'll have a stroke when he finds out, I hope you realize."

"I was hoping that the whole _fait accompli_ thing would go a long way to avoiding cardio-vascular accidents."

"You really thought that?"

"Okay, no, but I'm holding out hope," Sam flashes her a tired smile, and she laughs and stubs out her cigarette.

"I'd kiss you, except you'd complain I taste like an ash tray."

He rummages in his pocket, shuffling one crutch awkwardly to the side, and produces a pack of gum. "Dean swears on his life I was never a Boy Scout, but I think he might be trying to spare me the humiliation."

He leans forward, the stick of gum held between thumb and forefinger, and her smile grows wider as he slides it between her lips, then takes her wrist and draws her closer, his thumb rubbing against her pulse point. She shivers a little and lets herself melt into his touch as their lips brush. He kisses the way she remembers from before, as though it's as much muscle memory as emotion, and she doesn't know whether the thought makes her happy or unutterably sad. After a moment he pulls away gently, leaving her breathless, looking at her as though he's trying to permanently etch her image into his mind.

"If you were trying to distract me into believing you, it might just have worked," she jokes lamely, even while his hands are still doing something unbelievably distracting, his crutches forgotten, one on the ground, the other still propped against the wall.

"That wasn't really—"

"Sam."

"Um. Yes?"

"Shut up and let's go inside, since we've still got a while to ourselves?"

He grins, wide and happy this time. "Yeah, okay."

It's never quite as spontaneous as before, when he used to lift her bodily into his arms —in spite of her protests— and carry her kicking and protesting and laughing right into their bed, but it's almost as good. She lets him go first, pushes him backward onto the bed, crutches falling to the side with a clatter that they both ignore, and straddles his hips, nipping at his lower lip with her teeth and tugging on his t-shirt until he lifts his arms and lets her pull it over his head. She busies herself trailing kisses along his jaw and down his neck, enjoying the sound of his sharp intake of breath as she travels down his chest.

The doorbell rings.

"Fuck," Sam murmurs, letting his head fall back against the headboard with a hollow thump.

"Or not, as the case might be," Jess wrinkles her nose. "I could ignore it."

"It'll drive us both nuts, and you know it. I'll just wait here while you hurry," Sam gives her a rueful grin. "I promise not to keep going without you."

She smacks him lightly on the stomach. "Better not. Stay put, I am going to go get rid of the person with spectacularly bad timing who is at our door, and I will be right back."

With one last kiss she slides off the bed, rearranges her t-shirt where it got rucked up over her ribs, and fairly runs to the door when she hears the bell a second time. She pulls the door open, and blinks, a little nonplussed.

"Brady?"

He grins at her, but the smile doesn't reach his eyes, and a shiver runs up her spine for no reason she can determine. Unconsciously she takes a step backward, her hand going to her throat.

"Hiya, Jess. I'm here for Sam."


	14. Chapter 14

This is it, folks! Thanks for bearing with me all this time. There's a sequel in the works, for those of you who are interested, but I have no idea when it will be fit for publication. You all have been wonderful! Your feedback has made writing this story even more enjoyable than it would have been otherwise. :)

* * *

**Chapter 14**

The bar is dead. Deader than some of the corpses Dean has had the dubious pleasure of salting and burning during his short and not especially illustrious career as a hunter. Of course, it doesn't help that it's a Wednesday right before finals season, and so while there are a few regulars there, most of the students are either frantically trying to write term papers or have at least opted for the bars that are closer to campus. It's also the post-Hallowe'en slump, pretty typical his boss assures him, right before giving him the rest of the night off.

"Go on. I haven't managed to properly tend bar since you got here, and I could use the practice. I won't dock your hours, promise. Don't take this the wrong way, sweetie, but you look like you could use a proper night's sleep."

"You're a pearl among women," he gives her a wink, and she snaps her bar cloth at his ass.

"Get on with you! You're utterly shameless. Give my best to your brother and his girlfriend, you hear?"

"You got it," he flashes her an 'ok' sign over his shoulder, slips out into the night.

He's walked maybe five feet when he's immediately accosted by a small, shapely feminine form that all but plasters him to the closest wall.

"Hey, stranger. Going my way?" Lauren purrs. She's wearing perfume, something musky and kind of intoxicating. Dean laughs, jerks a little bit when her knee slips right between his thighs and nudges maybe a shade too close to home.

"Whoa there. Hey, hi, how are you? Were you waiting for me?" he asks, just a little uneasy.

She snorts. "Yes, Dean, I was waiting for you, four hours before you're meant to be off shift. I figured I would just lurk in this deserted alleyway all night long until you came out, rather than go inside the bar where it's nice and warm and there's plenty of alcohol if you have money and this really cute bartender who, I must say, is a fan-fucking-tastic lay."

"Yeah, okay, okay, I get your point. And I do try," he makes a lame attempt to recover his poise, but she's wearing this hot little number that looks like it might have velvet in it —he kind of wants to slide his hands over her waist to see what it's like— and that's exposing her cleavage in the nicest way. "So, uh, you weren't waiting. Does that mean you have plans?"

"As it happens, my plan was to come sit at your bar and flirt with you until you were so worked up you fucked me against a wall in the closest bathroom during your break."

His mouth goes dry, and from the looks of things Dean Jr. would have been entirely on board with that plan. "Uh. Wow. Okay, then."

"Of course, since you're off work now, that kind of puts a damper on my plans. Luckily for you, I'm very, _very_ flexible," she leans up on tiptoe to whisper the last few words in his ear on an exhale of warm breath, and he feels a shiver run through him.

"Yeah," he breathes. "Definitely flexible. I, uh, I'm just going to, uh... wow, your doing that is _not_ helping me in the forming-coherent-sentences department—" he squirms a little against the wall, but manages to fish out his cell phone. "I have to call. Just... let them know I'm going to —oh God— be late. Please don't do that while I'm talking to my brother's girlfriend, okay?"

She giggles, and licks a stripe up the side of his neck. "I don't know. That seems like an awfully boring thing to promise."

There was a time when Lauren would have been pretty much the ideal girl. She's maybe a bit smaller and a bit plumper than Dean usually likes women to be, but she's a wildcat, and one who has made it clear that she wants absolutely no attachments except for mind-blowing sex as often as they can manage —which is really less often than Dean would like. In fact, the whole set-up is what he would have asked for, six months ago, except that now it apparently comes with a side-order of guilt and mild dissatisfaction. The sex is absolutely mind-blowing, so it's not that, and Dean isn't exactly the kind of guy who's given to introspection, so it's not like he's given the whole situation much thought.

When he does bother to think about it, it strikes him that, six or seven months ago, Lauren would have been a one-night-stand, or maybe one really long shut-in weekend at best, and then they both would have moved on, no muss, no fuss. As it is now, he sees her almost every week, although it doesn't always end with them hooking up: sometimes she just shows up at the bar, has a few drinks, flirts a bit, and then drifts away when it's obvious he's too tired or preoccupied or whatever to really be into the sex. That right there is weird enough as it is, like she's the guy with the endless sex drive and he's the girl who needs to be in the right mood for sex. That, coupled with the fact that his brother has very evidently rekindled something with his own girlfriend, well... it just feels weird to be this casual about something that's become recurrent, even if neither Dean nor Lauren want anything more from each other.

Lauren bites his earlobe and laughs. "Where did you go, there? Lost you for a minute."

He yelps, rubs gingerly at his ear. "Yeah, sorry. No, I'm just going to call, let them know I'll be late."

"Dean, you're leaving four hours early. They're not expecting you back anytime soon..."

He shrugs, flips open his phone. "Yeah, I know. I just... it'll make me feel better if they know where I am. I mean, if something happens and they call the bar and I'm not there?"

"Hello, cell phone. You're not leaving the state, baby. I'll make sure you're home before curfew." she snakes a hand under his shirt, and God, does that ever make it hard to concentrate, except that this really isn't something that's negotiable on his end. He leans over, slips his tongue into her mouth, kisses her until she's breathless, then pulls away again.

"Two minutes, tops, and then I'm all yours."

She out-and-out sulks at that, and the expression isn't a nice one on her. "Fine."

The call goes to voicemail after three rings. Dean frowns at his phone, double-checks the time, and tries again. Voicemail. "That's weird." He scrolls through the numbers, tries Jess' cell phone instead, but that one goes right to voicemail, which means she went home and switched off her phone. He tries the apartment again, and gets voicemail for the third time. "They're not answering."

"Maybe they're having sex, the way we could be having if you'd just let your brother and his girlfriend be independent adults for a single night." Lauren's tone is a little sharp, impatient. She's not really used to being denied what she wants, he thinks.

"No, it's not normal." Whatever other thoughts he was having about this evening, they're gone now, replaced with a weird, uneasy feeling about the whole situation. "Sorry, sugar, but I'm going to have to take a rain check."

"You're really just going to run because they won't answer one phone call? Come on," she scoffs, and her face turns a little ugly in the light of the street lamp. "They're grown adults, Dean. Let them take responsibility for their own actions for one night. It's not like anything special is happening today, anyway."

He blinks at her, feeling his blood run cold. "I forgot the date," he murmurs to himself. "I fucking forgot!"

"What?"

She sounds insincere. How did he never notice that before? "Fuck. Are you trying to keep me away from them?"

"What? No! Well, yes, but just for tonight. Is that so bad?"

He pushes her aside, none too gently. "I have to go!"

Before she so much as has time to react he sprints across the parking lot, wrenches open the door to the Impala, and speeds toward home as fast as his baby can take him.

* * *

For a moment when Dean pulls up in front of the apartment building, everything is quiet, and he breathes a sigh of relief, feeling a little stupid for letting his imagination get the better of him. The street is still, utterly silent, and it's only after a moment that he realizes that the streetlights have all gone out, that nothing at all is stirring. There isn't a single light on in any of the nearby buildings, nothing. That's when he spots the flicker of light coming from his own living room.

Not light. _Fire_.

There are flames licking up the far wall of the living room, easily visible from the street, since Jess apparently didn't draw the curtains this evening. Sam doesn't care about curtains, but Jess does, always complaining that the neighbours can see right through their home. Ridiculous to be thinking about curtains right now, but it's the only thought in Dean's mind as he scrambles to disentangle himself from his seatbelt.

"Sam!"

Finally he's out of the car and running, clears the short flight of stairs in a single leap, heedless of the way his ankle protests the treatment. He kicks at the door, which flies inward so easily he realizes it must not have been locked at all, sprints down the hallway to the living room, and stops short. The fire has spread in the few seconds it's taken him to get inside, and the flames are roaring and crackling across the ceiling, gnawing hungrily at the walls, the curtains, the bookcases. The rest of the apartment is invisible, shrouded in smoke and flames, the kitchen and both bedrooms blocked by a wall of flame.

"Sam!"

Dean throws up an arm in a vain attempt to shield himself from the heat, the acrid smell of smoke and something else he can't identify, a choking, rotting scent like death filling his mouth and nose and making him want to puke. There's smoke everywhere, blinding him, seeping into his lungs and making him cough, all but doubled over. He takes a couple of halting steps into the blazing inferno, feels one foot come into contact with something soft, and nearly trips over a prone form on the floor. It's Jess, lying curled on herself, a pool of blood gathering somewhere near her stomach.

"Jesus," Dean drops to one knee, turns her over to check her pulse. Her eyes fly open and she clutches at his arm, mouth working silently, her expression one of absolute, abject terror. "Oh my God!" He jerks back reflexively, startled in spite of himself, somehow not expecting her to be alive.

He forces himself to lean over, dragging her into his arms. "Okay, I got you. Can you walk?" He gets his answer a moment later when her knees buckle and she sags in his arms, barely conscious. He spares another glance for the bedroom he can't even see. "Okay, okay Jess, I got you!" He has to shout to make himself heard over the roar of the fire, and even then he's not sure she can hear him.

It feels like hours before he's able to drag her all the way outside. They collapse in a heap on the grass, and he pulls off his over-shirt, wadding it up and pressing it against what looks like a horrific laceration in her side.

"Hold that there. Hold it!" he snaps, turning aside to cough out what feels like a lungful of smoke and ash. "I'm going back for Sam. You stay here, and hold that tight!"

He's up and on his feet again, running back for the open door, when there's a sort of dull _whump!_ and the next thing he knows he's being sent flying backwards, as easily as if he was being tossed by a poltergeist. He lands hard, arms and legs akimbo, and his head snaps back to crack painfully against the cement walkway. For a moment he can't move, can't think except for the terrible certainty that _Sam is still inside_, and he's never going to get to him in time. There's a constant ringing in his ears, and the ground won't freaking stay still when he tries to get up. Suddenly there are hands on his shoulders, an indistinct silhouette above him wreathed in flames. He struggles against the guy trying to hold him down, hears his voice like it's coming from far away, under water.

"Hey, hey! You all right? Take it easy!"

It's the stupidest thing he's ever heard, because how is he supposed to take it easy while Sam is still in there, trapped behind the flames? He scrabbles uselessly at the ground, vision blurring, finally reaches out and grabs the guy leaning over him by the arm and uses him as leverage to pull himself upright, in time to see flames burst through the living room window as the entire ceiling collapses inside the building. Distantly he hears someone screaming incoherently, and it takes him a second to figure out that the sound is coming from his own throat, that he's being restrained by two sets of arms now, pinning him in place, and he's too dizzy and winded to put up a fight.

More hands join the mix, and the next thing he knows he's being rolled over on the ground, strapped down to something cold and hard and plastic. He kicks weakly, one of his hands coming into contact with the smooth fabric of an EMT uniform.

"Sam," he tries to tell them, batting at the oxygen mask being lowered over his face. "My brother, he's inside," he breaks off, coughing, keeps trying to fend off the oxygen mask. "His leg —he can't walk. Someone has to get him!"

"Don't worry," another muffled voice filters past the ringing in his ears. "The firefighters are already working on it. You just let us do our jobs, okay buddy? Take it easy, don't fight us on this."

The oxygen mask gets strapped firmly in place in spite of his protests, and he feels them tying straps over his wrists, and they obviously haven't understood, haven't figured out that he has to get to Sam. He can't tell them anymore, can't lift his head, and it's not just the edges of his vision that are blurring anymore. There are black spots wherever he looks, and they grow larger and larger into a swirling vortex of darkness that swallows him down whole.

* * *

Dean can hear beeping when he wakes. He feels weird —heavy and sluggish— and after a moment he figures that he must be drugged. If he's drugged then that means he's in a hospital, and that would explain the beeping. Heart monitor, or something. His leg is throbbing in time with his heart, and dimly he remembers waiting for Sam to come find him. Didn't he call? He should find his cell phone, make sure everything's okay. Call Dad, too, just to let him know, not that he's looking forward to telling his father just how badly he fucked up that hunt. He's pretty sure the thing is dead, though, so maybe it's not a total fuck-up.

He feels sick. He can feel his mouth filling with saliva, forces his eyes open and swallows only to feel his gorge rising again. There's nothing within reach except the call button, so he presses it a little frantically and concentrates on not puking until a nurse pulls back the curtain by his bed.

She smiles. "Welcome back, honey."

He doesn't have time for pleasantries, just swallows again and tries to make himself understood. "Sick."

It works. "All right, hold on," she nods briskly, retrieves a basin from somewhere he can't quite see, then places it in his lap and raises the bed, and not a moment too soon. She rubs his back while he pukes, which is a little humiliating, but he's lived with worse. When he's done she holds a paper cup filled with water to his lips. "Rinse out your mouth, honey, you'll feel better. " She guides him back onto the bed, checks the monitor. "The doctor will be in to see you really soon, now you're awake, but off the record I'd say you're looking pretty good, apart from the concussion. Just a little smoke inhalation, but nothing too serious. Do you need me to call anyone for you?"

Her words bring it all back in a dizzying rush: the fire, the stench of sulfur, Jess on the ground, her blood seeping into the grass... Sam. Sam was in the fire. He has to fight not to be sick again. There's nothing left to bring up, anyway. "Sam..."

"Who's that? Do you have his number so we can contact him for you?"

"No," he shakes his head. "Sam, my brother. He was inside... did they find him? Did they get him? I couldn't get to him..."

She tilts her head, her expression sympathetic. "I'm sorry, I don't know. I'll try to find someone who can answer your questions, just as soon as I'm done here. I heard that they brought in a girl at the same time as you, but I haven't heard anything about your brother."

"Jess." His thoughts are all jumbled. "I thought... is she okay?"

"I couldn't say for sure, she's not on my rounds. I'll go check for you, how does that sound? Someone will come back as soon as we know something."

"Where is she?" He should go see her, make sure she's all right. Sam would want him to.

The nurse puts a hand out to stop him from pulling at the IV in his arm. "I don't know. I'll find out her room number for you, but you have to leave that be. You can't get up just yet, all right?"

"I'll be fine," he says, but he can't even pull his fingers out of her grip. "I have to go see if she's okay."

"No, you can't," she says, her tone gentle but still firm. "Stay here, and I promise, as soon as we can, we'll come let you know what's happened. If you're feeling up to it, in the meantime, there are some police officers who want to ask you some questions about the fire."

"Questions?" He wishes it wasn't so damned hard to think.

"Only if you're up to it. We have to clear it with the doctor first, in any case, but ultimately it'll be your call."

He's never been around the aftermath of a fire. He's set more than his fair share in his lifetime, usually small, controlled things, even when salting and burning a corpse, but he's never stuck around long enough to find out what happens afterward. His whole body hurts distantly, and when he lifts a hand to his face his cheek smarts as though someone's just slapped him. He must have gotten burned at some point and not realized it. There are cops outside his door, or close enough that it makes no difference, and he doesn't have the first idea what he's supposed to say to them.

He should get out, except that his head aches and he's still feeling kind of nauseous and dizzy. Jess is hurt somewhere in this hospital, Sam is still missing, and everything feels like it's spiralling out of his control. He doesn't even know where his phone is, stashed somewhere with his personal effects. There's no one he can call, anyway, apart from Bobby, and what would Bobby be even able to do ? He misses his father with a sudden, fierce ache that, embarrassingly, brings tears to his eyes, and he scrubs them away with the palm of his hand.

"Dad, what am I supposed to do now?"

* * *

It's hours before anyone at all speaks to him, but after he kicks up enough of a fuss and threatens to sign himself out AMA if he has to, eventually he's given the answers he wants. They even let him change back into his clothes, even though they're blood-stained and still reek of smoke and are probably going to have to be thrown out when all this is over. Still reeling from the impact, he lets himself be wheeled into Jess' hospital room, where she's lying, pale and frightened-looking, hair tangled around her shoulders, eyes wide in her face.

"They won't tell me what happened to Sam," are the first words out of her mouth. "They gave me something, and now no one is telling me anything!"

He clears his throat, looks up at the nurse. "You want to give us a minute?" He wheels himself closer to the bed, takes Jess' hand. "They, uh. They didn't find him."

She shakes her head. "What? No. He was there, I was with him. How could they not find him?"

"I don't know. I didn't get much from them, except that the whole place collapsed, and they couldn't get to the bedroom in time. They're—" he clears his throat again, blinks hard, "they're searching the debris now. They think —they think they might be buried."

"No." She's shaking her head. "No, that's not right."

She looks as baffled as he feels. "What do you mean?" It's easier to treat this like a case, not to think about the rest of it, of Sam... "What do you mean, it's not right? What happened?"

"Um. We were... he told me, about what you do. About the ghosts and the monsters."

"He what?" Dean straightens involuntarily in his wheelchair. Of all the things that might have come out of her mouth, this is the last one he expected.

"I didn't believe him," Jess' voice breaks. "I didn't believe what he was saying, but it's true, isn't it? What you do, the hunting, the monsters, it's all true, and I didn't believe him and I'm sorry. I'm so sorry..." Her breath hitches as tears start to run down her face.

He's on his feet, leaning over her bed, heart racing. He can feel sweat trickling down his spine, his hands clammy. "Jess, how do you know? What changed your mind? How do you know it's true?" He reaches out, brushes the tears from her face. "Hey, come on, don't cry. It's okay, don't cry. Tell me, it's okay," he lies, a little desperate by now.

"It—" she hiccups in a vain attempt to get herself under control. "Brady —before the fire. He came, and he said he was coming for Sam. Oh, God his eyes," she tries to hide her face in her hands, but Dean grabs her by the wrists, pulls her hands away from her face and forces her to look him in the eye.

"Jess! Come on, talk to me. What did you see?"

"I don't know," she moans. "It's –his eyes were black. Like, all black, even the whites. He th-threw me like I was made out of paper… I thought he was going to kill me, kill us both. Why am I not dead? He was going to kill me!"

Dean pulls her awkwardly against him, wraps her in his arms and lets her cry, then, because he doesn't have an answer, not for any of it. She sobs until she's exhausted, stays quiet and trembling against his chest, tears soaking through his already-filthy shirt, and he strokes her hair and tries to sort out all the thoughts whirling in his head. He's never heard of anything like this, but it's definitely nothing natural. People's eyes don't turn black, and how the hell did he manage never to notice anything wrong with Brady? His only goddamned job, his one role in life, and he keeps screwing it up, over and over again.

"Jess," he murmurs. "What happened to Sam? Did you see what happened?"

She shakes her head. "I heard him scream, but I couldn't see, and it hurt so much... I'm sorry. I tried, I did, I promise…"

"Hey, it's okay," he lies. He wants to shake her, scream at her for not looking out for Sam, except that that's his job, and he wasn't there to do it either. "It's okay, we'll fix this. I'm going to fix this."

"How?"

He shakes his head. "I don't know yet. I don't know yet, but I have to make some calls. Just… just wait for a minute," he yanks his cell phone out of his pocket. "I'm gonna call Bobby, and –and there are others I can ask. There's gotta be a way –" he stops, words dying in his mouth, staring at the blinking message light on his screen.

_1 missed call._

Jess notices the change on his face. "What is it?"

"I, uh. There's a message. From my Dad."

"What?"

He tries to wave her off, suddenly not sure he remembers how to breathe, but she tightens her grip on his arm, fingers digging in hard enough that he's going to have bruises later.

"What's he say?"

He shakes his head, just punches in the code to retrieve his messages, holds the phone so they can both listen. The sound of his father's voice hits him like a sucker-punch, and he has to bite down hard on the inside of his cheek —hard enough that he tastes copper on his tongue— to keep his eyes from tearing up. He swallows the lump in his throat, forces himself to breathe, to listen to his father's words.

"_Dean... something big is starting to happen... I need to try and figure out what's going on. It may..." _There's a burst of static, and then his father's voice comes through again, and Dean feels a chill run down his spine._ "Be very careful, Dean. We're all in danger."_

There's nothing else. The message ends, and Dean finds himself staring stupidly at the blank screen as though it might just hold all the answers to the universe. He can feel Jess waiting expectantly, watching him, but his tongue has cleaved to the roof of his mouth. He's not sure he can even form words anymore. Jess' voice is soft, barely registers in the quiet of the room.

"What does it mean?"

He shakes himself, can almost hear his father barking at him to pull it together, to work the case. He flips the phone shut, puts it in his pocket, and feels his mouth pull into a feral grin. He finds his words, finally, and it feels like a promise, a vow that he can see reflected in Jess' eyes.

"It means we're going to go find my Dad."

~END~


End file.
